You won't have heard from me in a while. Unless you are Emma, the doctor or the pharmacist you certainly won't have seen me since Bank Holiday Monday. That's only five days ago, but for anyone used to stumbling across the contents of these pages or my habitual status-updating it might seem like an unusually long period of time.
That's because I've been ill again. In truth, I am not having the best of luck with my health at the moment. Two weeks ago I had a water infection. What doctors like to call a UTI or a Urinary Tract Infection. Basically you get a lot of bladder and groin pain, feel quite sick, and your water smells like you died four years ago. Foolishly I did not allow this to interrupt my working life. I phoned the doctor for a consultation on a day when I was on annual leave in any case, negotiated the time-honoured course of leeches solution, and manned up. I did this because I had only recently had a day off sick due to another bad kidney day. I felt a bit of a plank having the week off I probably needed only days after my boss had told me that my sickness was pretty good all things considered. So I kept on keeping on. It was a mistake.
It all started in the unlikely surroundings of Plymouth. Emma and I had travelled down there for the christening/first birthday party of her youngest niece Alexandra. Though we both left work at 3.30 on that Friday, it still took four hours to get from Liverpool to Bristol. We were staying in Bristol on the Friday because we thought that in the first place it might break the journey up, and in the second place Bristol is a city we have always enjoyed. The plan had been to meet my cousin whose girlfriend lives in Bristol, but he had spectacularly unsurprisingly texted me to say that he couldn't make it because it was his sister's birthday. Of course, since his sister is also my cousin I knew this, and had pointed this out to him repeatedly when we originally arranged to meet. It'll be fine he said, which of course it wouldn't be and wasn't. But that's Alex for you. Indeed it is, but you can't help thinking that the phrase 'that's Alex for you' is the principle reason why that is Alex for you. If you follow.
So anyway since I learned long ago that the absence of expectation eliminates disappointment I was not too worried. We passed a perfectly pleasant evening anyway, once we got through the hideous traffic. There were no roadworks, no accidents, just some quite needless speed restrictions near every junction on the M5. There's no point trying to fathom it out. Maybe That's The M5 For You. We went to Bella Italia for what I believe was the single reason that Emma had vouchers for the place. We had been there a year or so earlier, the night before the christening/first birthday party of Emma's older niece Elizabeth. Clearly their family like Bristol too. Emma's brother Andrew used to live there. He's in the navy, hence the recent move to Plymouth and the even more arduous drive that I don't know about while I am enjoying my pizza, but which awaits me in the morning. Accompanied by the return of my health problems. Before that we stop off for a drink at the Wetherspoons close to the hotel, a place where last time we visited we were offered free champagne (sparkly wine) by a man dressed as Isambard Kingdom Brunel. He's not here tonight so instead we find the only quiet corner there is and try to keep ourselves to ourselves. Every female voice sounds like Alex's girlfriend and I keep thinking that maybe they are here after all. Their accents are....distinctive. Amid a group of these girls a bag seems to have been left unattended and we worry again about ending up on tomorrow's news bulletin.
On Andrew's advice we had given ourselves two and a half hours to get from Bristol to Plymouth on Saturday morning. To be fair to him it should have taken a little less than that. Yet if the traffic was improbably bad on the M5 on Friday, it had reached new levels of silliness by Saturday morning. Still no roadworks, no accident. Just someone no doubt giggling away to themselves as they lit up signs instructing everyone to slow down to 40 miles per hour. A few minutes of that and 40 miles per hour seems like a distant dream as you crawl along as a consequence of everyone being slowed down junction after junction. The plan had been to meet up with Andrew and his wife Cassie and the kids for lunch at 1.00. But at that time we were still around 90 miles away. It was after 3.00 when we got there, to be greeted by Emma's mum Susan with Elizabeth. She told us that she would wait in the nearby pub for us while we checked in to our hotel. Susan that is, not Elizabeth. Elizabeth is only two and as yet her linguistic skills do not extend to making meeting arrangements.
Even this was not straightforward. If the pointlessness of speed restrictions on the M5 is hard to understand, then I don't know quite how to describe the idea of having two Premier Inn's side by side on the same complex. But there they were either side of the family pub that we had agreed to meet the family in. Naturally enough we went to check in to the wrong one at first, and had to plod around the back of the pub on to the other one. We left the car in the car park of the wrong hotel. It just seemed easier than getting everything back in and driving around, and getting everything back out again. The family wouldn't be there by the time we had done all that.
Not that they were there anyway. Unfortunately Susan is rather prone to doing the exact opposite of what she says she will. But not in the same way as Alex is. Susan usually doesn't know she is going to do the exact opposite of what she says she will, whereas Alex is completely aware. Luckily everyone else around him is aware of it too 98% of the time. Emma's disappointed by this because understandably she wanted to spend some time with the kids. Now the plan was to meet at the pub at 7.00 for a few drinks watching the Champions League Final but by that time of course the kids would be in bed. So it would have to wait until tomorrow and the christening. This puts a dampener on our pub lunch and I feel a little guilty that I didn't suggest leaving earlier. After all, we had spent a good deal of the previous evening in traffic on the M5 and so might have guessed that it would be a difficult journey. But I've never had much common sense. I rely too much on Emma for that.
What is also putting a dampener on things is the state of my health. Near the end of the journey to Plymouth I started to feel a soreness on the right side of my mouth. Like an ulcer or a sore inside my mouth. Nothing too dramatic, but enough for Emma to suggest that, since we were already too late to meet Andrew and the family for lunch, that we stop to pick something up for it if we get the chance. We stopped at a Sainsbury's where Emma picked up some mouthwash and some Daktarin. At first it made things worse. When I was applying it at the hotel I felt like someone was trying to slice my gums apart with a rusty blade. But by the time we were eating at the pub it had eased a little and I felt like it might be ok. Yet at the back of my mind I also worried that it would not be. There's a pattern here. Whenever I have been on anti-biotics in the recent past I have had problems with my mouth afterwards. Oral thrush, in fact. My doctor has explained to me previously that this can happen when you are taking a lot of different medication orally. In addition to my anti-biotics there is the Solifenacin I take for my old man's kidneys, and the seemingly constant stream of painkillers I was taking to get me through the working week when I had the infection. It wasn't too bad on Saturday eating lunch then, but I remember thinking that if this develops into oral thrush then I will be in some serious pain come Sunday night or Monday morning.
Saturday night is unremarkable enough. We meet at the Holiday Inn which we take a pleasant walk to via the marina. We don't really do that deliberately for the aesthetic pleasure of it. The hotel receptionist advises us to go that way to make sure we don't get lost. After about 15 minutes of sea air and shitting dogs we come to a large park with some access issues. We have to walk all the way around the right hand side of it to get through rather than take the steps at the front. Mercifully the Holiday Inn is on the edge of the park and we don't have far to go. That venue has been chosen because Emma's auntie Diane works in a Holiday Inn in Sheffield and so gets discount. Everything goes on her tab, we are told, and we don't argue. I save my arguments for her husband Chris. Last time I saw Chris he made some rather disturbing comments to me about Hillsborough. Lamentable nonsense about fans misbehaving on the day. I thought I had put him straight then but to my astonishment he brings it up again, almost as if he can't think of anything else to talk about to a person from Merseyside. He tells me that 'we' (he doesn't say who 'we' might be) have a 'real problem understanding' to which I reply that we have a real problem with people who don't accept that the fans were not to blame, that the police failed in their duty, and that subsequently lies were told and statements changed to instigate a cover-up. He changes the subject. Let's talk about Saints. They're currently in the process of losing 48-22 to Warrington and my only distraction from Chris is the Champions League final and the constant stream of text updates from my mates on Saints' impending loss.
After Arjen Robben's late goal wins the Champions League for Bayern Munich and spares us the tedium of extra time it is suggested that we move on. I'm not that keen on the idea, and not only because the ale is cheaper here. It's also quiet enough to have a conversation and genuinely socialise. I'm so old now that the idea of going to a loud bar in which conversation is possible only through the medium of mime no longer appeals. But we go anyway. The row of bars around the marina are all chock-full and impossibly loud and we mercifully settle on the one which has the least of these attributes. Women at a hen party are all dressed in sixties get-up and it's like wandering into a Hall Of Lulus. My gaze is diverted by the girl behind the bar who has a slight look of Karen Gillan from Dr Who. But I'd still rather not be here. I've not sat through an entire episode of Dr Who since Tom Baker's day. I'm not one of those obsessives who will watch or listen to something because it features somebody attractive. Although I did watch the drama that Karen Gillan was in about David Bailey and Jean someone or other. See I can't even remember who she played. I was distracted. We take the long way back to the hotel over the cobbles because the bridge we crossed to get here closes to the public at 9.30pm. Every time I go over a cobble stone I think that either a wheel will fall off or I'll be hurled forwards out of my chair and into the street. Or the sea.
As with all church-going occasions I find the christening almost unbearable. I'm not one of those ignoramuses who spent last week blaming Islam for the horrible murder in Woolwich, but nor am I someone who believes in religion. As a friend of mine so succinctly put it last week, the most common cause of atheism is logic and reason. I don't believe in God any more than I believe in Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy, so to listen to the priest bang on about His Lord just irritates me. I've expressed the reasons for this elsewhere on these pages. It is enough here to say that I have seen too much death among the young, experienced too much suffering on account of the science of my condition, to hold any truck with the view that there is one all-powerful, Almighty making it all happen. He's a sick fucker if he does exist. The nadir of the service comes when the priest pulls out a Mars bar and uses it as an analogy for the father, the son and the holy spirit. Something about chocolate, nougat and caramel. Except that I can prove that all those three things exist. No doubt he would argue that I cannot prove that God does not exist but we're back to Santa Claus again in that case. He tells us that in previous sermons he has used a three-point plug to illustrate his point. He tells us this proudly, as if he is reporting that he has just saved a toddler from a crocodile. The only thing enjoyable about all of this is that the church dog walks on to the stage near the end and promptly falls asleep while the priest is still preaching at us. As votes of no confidence go it's pretty damning. Before that it had begun barking in between prayers. The only thing missing was for it to have taken a dump on the altar. I can't be the only one relieved to have left the church, with it's inadequate ramp (I had to bounce down the steps) and it's sub-zero temperatures.
We progress to a nice little family centre for the party, whereupon I make the mistake that seals my fate and ensures my disappearance from public life for the week. For some reason I have a quite outrageous thirst. I make this worse by nibbling on the crisps, quavers and twiglets (I don't even like Twiglets, do I?) that Susan has distributed in little bowls around the room. I down the first pint of iced coke rather too quickly and it does not quench my thirst. So I have another one. While the children play games of pass the parcel and musical chairs which are blatantly fixed to ensure that they all win, the sugar in my two pints of coke sets about bringing out the worst in my oral thrush. When we go back to the hotel Emma decides she needs a rest, but I go to the bar to see if a pint of something stronger might dull the senses. It just gives me stomach ache and it is all I can do to fight my way through it (I'm nothing if not courageous when it comes to lager consumption) before I am back up in the room and asleep myself. I awake around 6.30 with my mouth raging. I can hardly move the left side of it and I have absolutely no clue as to why something which started on the right hand side and seemed to have been stamped out by a tube of Daktarin can have now resurfaced ten times as painfully on the other side of my mouth.
Sleeping, even for just an hour, has had the effect of completely drying my mouth up and it is now something close to agony. I can still speak, but with all the mouth movements of Keith Harris. Susan and Roland are staying for the extra night too, and earlier we had arranged to meet up for a few drinks again. I almost don't go because I'm in no fit state, but then reason with myself that if I get up, clean out my mouth and hammer it with alcohol I will feel better than I will if I stay in watching Channel 5 and feeling sorry for myself. Probably not tomorrow, but I have never been one for tomorrow. So we go, to another Wetherspoons where this time the staff are dressed as pirates or something. One woman manhandles me in her attempts to help me find the camouflaged lift. It's just a piece of carpet that blends in with the rest of the floor next to the staircase and a door that might lead to a cloakroom or a toilet. There's no gate, no signage. But there is a button and it does work. Another pirate goes to the trouble of finding us a table amid the Bank Holiday crowds, and moments later he comes back with a chair for Emma. You don't get that kind of assistance in St.Helens or Liverpool, I remember thinking. I remember thinking that, and I remember thinking that my mouth hurts.
I don't know how I made it through another four hour drive home on Monday morning. I awoke at about 8.00 in the same amount of agony I had been in during my previous experiment with sleeping with oral thrush. Sleeping with oral thrush? That just sounds wrong. Anyway, you know what I mean. So we decide to go straight home. Emma's not one for breakfasting when she has been drinking and I couldn't get so much as a single baked bean into my mouth in my current state. On reflection I should probably have asked Emma to drive but I just wanted to get home and probably felt more in control of that goal if I did the driving myself. En route, we stop at a service station for some fuel. Emma has suggested that I try some Yakult yoghurt drinks because they have good bacteria in them or some such. I agree because I'm willing to try anything at this point, but I have reckoned without our legendary gift for misfortune. We have stopped at the only service station in the northern hemisphere which is not open for anything other than the purchase of fuel. There is building work going on around the forecourt and petrol is paid for in a little room next to the normal kiosk.
I'm desperate by now so I go straight to the walk-in centre in town. I am greeted by a receptionist who listens to my problem and assures me that someone will see me soon. About ten agonising minutes later I am called into a room by a nurse. She's a very nice lady and I suppose she is only doing her job. It's just that after our conversation I am not entirely sure what her job is. Her name is Linda, and when she finds out what I think the problem is she takes a look inside my mouth with a light;
"Can't see any little white specks." she informs me.
I nod with all the patience I can muster, and she goes on;
"See, normally we can't give you the Nystatin (the drug I take for oral thrush, or at least the one I have taken the other 17 times this has happened to me) if we don't know that's what it is."
"But I know what it is, I have had it before."
"Just let me go and ask the senior."
She comes back in to the room. She has asked the senior and the senior says no.
"We can't give you the Nystatin." she repeats.
"Cos it's not oral thrush, you see."
But it is.
She surpasses herself with;
"It's not life threatening though, is it?"
Well no. But what was not my understanding of the function of NHS walk-in centres. In fact, I could have sworn I saw a sign outside directing patients with 'minor injuries'. So are we saying that walk-in centres only treat minor injuries which are life threatening? This would appear to be a contradiction. Fuming, suffering, about to kill someone or something I give up the proverbial ghost and go home. At this point I make my last contribution to anyone other than Emma for the week, speculating with a friend on Facebook as to whether I was refused treatment at the walk-in centre because I failed to walk in to the walk-in centre. I suggest Mr Cameron looks into the prospect of building some wheel-in centres pretty smartly. There is obviously an urgent need.
On Tuesday morning I phone the doctor and ask for an appointment. They offer my 3.50pm and when I ask if they have anything earlier they offer me 9.10am. Why did they not offer me that in the first place? Why would they not offer me the first available appointment? Is there some sort of conspiracy to stop me getting better going on? My paranoia is reaching Fergie levels, and I'm only calmed when I actually see the doctor. Dr Cox takes a look in my mouth and confirms that I do have visible signs of oral thrush, just not white specks which the nurse had been looking for. He calls it a 'white sheen'. At last I am prescribed the Nystatin that I know will work and that I know I need. He also gives me a course of tablets which he says will blitz it once and for all, so much so that I should only take half and save the rest for the rainy day when it returns. I feel like a junkie must feel when they finally track down their dealer. It would be euphoric if I wasn't in so much fucking pain.
And ever since that doctor's appointment I have been holed up in the house feeling sorry for myself. I have read all of Jamie Carragher's autobiography and half of a book with some kind of Lemon Tree-related title by a man called Mark Rice-Oxley which is about his experiences with depression and other stress related illnesses. If you are slightly mad like me it is required reading. I have also watched Traffic with Michael Douglas, Benicio Del Torro, Catherine Zeta Jones, Don Cheadle and lots of other famous people too numerous to mention, The Libertine which is a quite awful historical drama with Johnny Depp and John Malkovich, and lots of tennis, cricket and NBA Basketball. All with a slightly forlorn look on my face as the medicine has taken it's time to have the desired effect. As I write, it is more irritating than painful and I intend to return to work on Monday, whereupon I will no doubt have a discussion with my boss about how my sickness record is not quite as good as it was a fortnight ago.
Until then I'm off for a Yakult.
Saturday, 1 June 2013
Thursday, 23 May 2013
Woolwich
Where to begin with this one? Unfathomable. Mind-blowing. But most of all more than a touch depressing. It's an emotive subject, so I'll try the best I can to dispense with the usual cheap glib-ness and try and address the issues that have arisen following the incident.
Two men took the decision to hack a serving soldier to death on the streets of Woolwich yesterday afternoon. With a machete. It's difficult to comprehend. Like something out of a heavily sensationalised television drama. While some people are especially horrified by the fact that the victim was a serving member of our forces, I'm not sure that's particularly relevant. The killers probably think it is. They probably think they have struck a blow against our nation by savagely butchering one of it's defenders. But an attack like this on anyone, whoever they are, would have been equally sickening and repulsive.
I'm not in favour of the death penalty, personally. Never have been. There are far too many things that can go wrong. After his heinous crime, one of the men spoke about how this was 'an eye for an eye' or a 'tooth for a tooth'. He was referring to his belief that British soldiers are killing Muslims in other parts of the world on a daily basis. Certainly I have my issues with British foreign policy as many do, but I think the downright tragedy of yesterday goes some way to proving that the eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth philosophy of the death penalty is in grave danger of causing more problems than it solves. Holding this view, I can't therefore change it when it is severely tested as it has been in Woolwich. Others will disagree and I can fully understand those who shout that the killers should hang, even be tortured, whatever you want to do with them. It's just not something that sits right with me. Killing people is wrong no matter what the circumstances.
What I can't understand is the way in which many people have used the events in Woolwich as an excuse to peddle some quite outrageous, racist nonsense. To blame an entire race or religion for the actions of two psychopaths is an indefensible position. If I commit a violent crime it in no way suggests that the disabled community in general is evil and dangerous. Likewise if a gay person does something despicable, we should not then start fearing for our lives whenever confronted with a homosexual. So why then are there people attacking mosques, writing graffiti on the cars of innocent people who happen to be Muslim, planning demonstrations, stirring up dim-witted organisations into so-called 'protests' against people of a certain faith or colour? It's sickening, wouldn't you say?
The truth is anyone can be a psycopath and commit a shocking crime. It is not dependent on your religion, race, disability, gender, sexual orientation, nor even the colour of your underwear. Apologies, the glibness creeps in now and again even on the most serious of subjects. But the point is that everyone is responsible for their own actions. We cannot live in a world where if one person of a certain minority group acts a certain way, we then presume that all of those with that one particular aspect in common are going to act the same way. That kind of thinking takes narrow mindedness to a level I didn't think possible. Some of these people who want Muslims burned or Asians gassed or whatever it is are probably reading this now and disagreeing with every word. Which is a concept that terrifies me.
Remarkably, the killers spoke quite calmly to people around the crime scene yesterday. One said something along the lines of wanting to start a war in London, or indeed in England. We can't let them. And the only way to stop that happening is to judge these two on their own lack of merit. Treat them for what they are. Cold blooded killers with no regard for human life or for what is right and what is wrong. Not, as they claim, as some kind of representatives of the Muslim faith.
Two men took the decision to hack a serving soldier to death on the streets of Woolwich yesterday afternoon. With a machete. It's difficult to comprehend. Like something out of a heavily sensationalised television drama. While some people are especially horrified by the fact that the victim was a serving member of our forces, I'm not sure that's particularly relevant. The killers probably think it is. They probably think they have struck a blow against our nation by savagely butchering one of it's defenders. But an attack like this on anyone, whoever they are, would have been equally sickening and repulsive.
I'm not in favour of the death penalty, personally. Never have been. There are far too many things that can go wrong. After his heinous crime, one of the men spoke about how this was 'an eye for an eye' or a 'tooth for a tooth'. He was referring to his belief that British soldiers are killing Muslims in other parts of the world on a daily basis. Certainly I have my issues with British foreign policy as many do, but I think the downright tragedy of yesterday goes some way to proving that the eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth philosophy of the death penalty is in grave danger of causing more problems than it solves. Holding this view, I can't therefore change it when it is severely tested as it has been in Woolwich. Others will disagree and I can fully understand those who shout that the killers should hang, even be tortured, whatever you want to do with them. It's just not something that sits right with me. Killing people is wrong no matter what the circumstances.
What I can't understand is the way in which many people have used the events in Woolwich as an excuse to peddle some quite outrageous, racist nonsense. To blame an entire race or religion for the actions of two psychopaths is an indefensible position. If I commit a violent crime it in no way suggests that the disabled community in general is evil and dangerous. Likewise if a gay person does something despicable, we should not then start fearing for our lives whenever confronted with a homosexual. So why then are there people attacking mosques, writing graffiti on the cars of innocent people who happen to be Muslim, planning demonstrations, stirring up dim-witted organisations into so-called 'protests' against people of a certain faith or colour? It's sickening, wouldn't you say?
The truth is anyone can be a psycopath and commit a shocking crime. It is not dependent on your religion, race, disability, gender, sexual orientation, nor even the colour of your underwear. Apologies, the glibness creeps in now and again even on the most serious of subjects. But the point is that everyone is responsible for their own actions. We cannot live in a world where if one person of a certain minority group acts a certain way, we then presume that all of those with that one particular aspect in common are going to act the same way. That kind of thinking takes narrow mindedness to a level I didn't think possible. Some of these people who want Muslims burned or Asians gassed or whatever it is are probably reading this now and disagreeing with every word. Which is a concept that terrifies me.
Remarkably, the killers spoke quite calmly to people around the crime scene yesterday. One said something along the lines of wanting to start a war in London, or indeed in England. We can't let them. And the only way to stop that happening is to judge these two on their own lack of merit. Treat them for what they are. Cold blooded killers with no regard for human life or for what is right and what is wrong. Not, as they claim, as some kind of representatives of the Muslim faith.
Wednesday, 22 May 2013
Language Barrier
Something happened at work today which led me to today's topic. It was a small, fairly trivial incident but it got me to thinking about the way people view disability, and the absurdities thrown up by their limited knowledge and morbid fear of it.
I was in the canteen at lunch time when one of the students came in with a small child. Don't worry, this is not now going to turn into a lengthy lament on teen pregnancy. There'll be no cynical suggestions here that some people might enrol on a course with no intention of completing it but every intention of picking up bursaries and maternity pay. None of that. Anyway this child could not have been more than a few months old. She was being carried around by her young mother as she tried to make the non-choice from the limited treats on offer in the Tithebarn Street canteen. When she had chosen she made her way to the till and was greeted by the expected and probably understandable coo-eys and look-at-you-aren't-you-beautifuls from the serving staff. One of whom then turned to the baby and said;
"What's your name?"
Instantly I found it quite odd that anyone would ask such a young child a question and expect to get an answer from anyone but the accompanying adult. But more than that, it reminded me of my own childhood when people would ask my mother, rather than me, what my name was right up until I was about 10 years old. I have vivid memories of pushing around the shops with my mum who would regularly be stopped by strangers (why did they do that anyway?) and ask her my name, my age, and comment that I was a 'belter' or offer some other equally disturbing and completely unfounded and half-baked compliment. I am sure these people meant well. Somewhere in the pit of what passed for their minds they must have thought that both my mum and I would be thrilled to have such interest taken in us by strangers, most of whom if I recall rightly were old ladies picking up their pensions or drunken old men who, it turns out, had just stumbled out of The Vine and were headed inexorably for the wallet-emptying non-sanctuary of Ladbrokes next door.
Maybe you can forgive the aged for behaving like this 25 years ago. It's at least a debate we can have. But I would lay good money on the notion that this kind of thing still happens to young disabled people today, and not just from the elderly or the slightly tipsy gamblers. For some reason, some people seem to think that because certain parts of your anatomy don't work, then it therefore follows that English won't be your first language. If indeed you have a first language. Better be safe and ask his mum if you want to know anything about him. You wouldn't want to be left in the embarrassing situation of having him dribble out some incomprehensible attempt to say the word 'Stephen'. Or Ste. Never Steve by the way. I'm not Steve. Steve's the bloke that the fictional teenagers in crap kiddie soaps obsess over. He's the middle-aged, middle-class family man who watches rugby union and whose idea of individuality is a cheeky cigar when his wife's out having cocktails with the girls. I'm Ste. A beer and sex and chips and gravy fat lad from Thatto Heath who can spell. Or I'm Stephen, a pseudo-intellectual with a half-steady job and a sideline in online journalism. Either way I can spell.
Which brings me back to where I should be and where I was when I got distracted about people Steve-ing me. While people have just about stopped asking my mum what my name is, the fact remains that I get patronised intellectually on a daily basis, and it happens in the most mundane of conversation. If you have a wheelchair, and someone starts a conversation with you with the phrase 'I don't mean to be funny but...' then start pushing away. One of the most difficult things about being a disabled person is that you frequently get talked down to by people who are no more intellectually or socially spectacular than you are. Some of the people who try it on with me (though probably not intentionally in many cases) would, were they to look through the Memoirs Of A Fire Hazard archives, find words that they could not define, spell or probably even recognise. People who live the most basic and uninteresting of lives yet still see fit to take pity on me or approach me with out and out trepidation. As if being seen outside alone with me in the community will detonate a ticking time bomb in their trousers. Sometimes it is amusing to watch them squirm as they try to interact with you, but mostly it is just a pitiful and depressing experience. The saddest thing about all of this is that not all of these people are strangers, and some of them might tell you they were good friends of mine.
The baby never did answer the question.
I was in the canteen at lunch time when one of the students came in with a small child. Don't worry, this is not now going to turn into a lengthy lament on teen pregnancy. There'll be no cynical suggestions here that some people might enrol on a course with no intention of completing it but every intention of picking up bursaries and maternity pay. None of that. Anyway this child could not have been more than a few months old. She was being carried around by her young mother as she tried to make the non-choice from the limited treats on offer in the Tithebarn Street canteen. When she had chosen she made her way to the till and was greeted by the expected and probably understandable coo-eys and look-at-you-aren't-you-beautifuls from the serving staff. One of whom then turned to the baby and said;
"What's your name?"
Instantly I found it quite odd that anyone would ask such a young child a question and expect to get an answer from anyone but the accompanying adult. But more than that, it reminded me of my own childhood when people would ask my mother, rather than me, what my name was right up until I was about 10 years old. I have vivid memories of pushing around the shops with my mum who would regularly be stopped by strangers (why did they do that anyway?) and ask her my name, my age, and comment that I was a 'belter' or offer some other equally disturbing and completely unfounded and half-baked compliment. I am sure these people meant well. Somewhere in the pit of what passed for their minds they must have thought that both my mum and I would be thrilled to have such interest taken in us by strangers, most of whom if I recall rightly were old ladies picking up their pensions or drunken old men who, it turns out, had just stumbled out of The Vine and were headed inexorably for the wallet-emptying non-sanctuary of Ladbrokes next door.
Maybe you can forgive the aged for behaving like this 25 years ago. It's at least a debate we can have. But I would lay good money on the notion that this kind of thing still happens to young disabled people today, and not just from the elderly or the slightly tipsy gamblers. For some reason, some people seem to think that because certain parts of your anatomy don't work, then it therefore follows that English won't be your first language. If indeed you have a first language. Better be safe and ask his mum if you want to know anything about him. You wouldn't want to be left in the embarrassing situation of having him dribble out some incomprehensible attempt to say the word 'Stephen'. Or Ste. Never Steve by the way. I'm not Steve. Steve's the bloke that the fictional teenagers in crap kiddie soaps obsess over. He's the middle-aged, middle-class family man who watches rugby union and whose idea of individuality is a cheeky cigar when his wife's out having cocktails with the girls. I'm Ste. A beer and sex and chips and gravy fat lad from Thatto Heath who can spell. Or I'm Stephen, a pseudo-intellectual with a half-steady job and a sideline in online journalism. Either way I can spell.
Which brings me back to where I should be and where I was when I got distracted about people Steve-ing me. While people have just about stopped asking my mum what my name is, the fact remains that I get patronised intellectually on a daily basis, and it happens in the most mundane of conversation. If you have a wheelchair, and someone starts a conversation with you with the phrase 'I don't mean to be funny but...' then start pushing away. One of the most difficult things about being a disabled person is that you frequently get talked down to by people who are no more intellectually or socially spectacular than you are. Some of the people who try it on with me (though probably not intentionally in many cases) would, were they to look through the Memoirs Of A Fire Hazard archives, find words that they could not define, spell or probably even recognise. People who live the most basic and uninteresting of lives yet still see fit to take pity on me or approach me with out and out trepidation. As if being seen outside alone with me in the community will detonate a ticking time bomb in their trousers. Sometimes it is amusing to watch them squirm as they try to interact with you, but mostly it is just a pitiful and depressing experience. The saddest thing about all of this is that not all of these people are strangers, and some of them might tell you they were good friends of mine.
The baby never did answer the question.
Thursday, 9 May 2013
Sex On Wheels
I was in a vile mood last night. For whatever reason I had the rage. In the midst of this rage I made a mistake. With the anger and vitriol building up I suggested that The Apprentice was 'the very fucking bottom of the tv industry's enormous barrell of shite'. It's not. Not quite. Loathesome as it is to consider how many people are glued to the search for the next capitalist fat-cat, there is a greater evil about to hit our screens.
Tonight Channel Four will cover themselves in disgrace with the airing of a film about the sex lives of disabled people. Now you might think it slightly arse-about-face of me to write a scathing attack on such a programme without actually having seen it, but I'm afraid I don't have the mental strength to sit through it. After 30 seconds of their previous effort on the subject, 'The Undateables', I look back and remember how this made me feel and consider myself a danger to society should I put myself through this kind of abject horror again. I don't need to see tonight's airing of 'Sex On Wheels' to hate it. It offends me as a concept. It's pandering to the sick voyeurism of people who want so desperately to feel superior to someone else.
Let's start with the title anyway. Sex On Wheels. Who came up with that? It sounds like something that Brian Potter might sing in tribute to Kings Of Leon on Talent Night at The Phoenix. Apart from anything else, it's misleading. Normally one does not have sex on wheels. No more than one sleeps on wheels or one takes a fucking bath on wheels. Read the bio, I was not born in a wheelchair because my mother would never have survived. Nor therefore, am I tied to it, despite my inability to walk. My wheelchair doesn't have brakes, and so to have sex on wheels would be frankly impractical and probably quite dangerous. Too much of that and my partner might very well end up in need of a wheelchair herself. The need for brakes on wheelchairs is a myth, by the way. I can't tell you how many bus or train drivers I have wanted to disembowel for asking me if I've 'got my brake on' when I get on board. They only stop a tiny hair short of rubbing you on the head when they ask. The implication that able bodied people know more about how to ensure the safety of disabled passengers is beyond absurd.
Back at the ranch, the plot that is, what really offends me about Sex On Wheels and it's cheaply-made, turgid brethren are the people who take part. Why the fuck would you want to put yourself through this level of humiliation? To be on television? That's the kind of mentality that sub-humans like Jeremy Kyle make a living on. Nobody knows any better than me that it is more difficult to 'get some' when you have a disability than if you do not. It wasn't until my friends started camping out with girls in tents at about 14 years of age that I actually considered myself to be any different to any of them. I'd missed out on other stuff, like football, but I replaced that with basketball. Basketball was my football, and it took me further and allowed me to travel far more than I would have been able to in the St.Helens Junior Combination. But camping out with girls in tents is not something that can be so easily substituted. It's little exaggeration to say that the nearest I got to intimacy with any of my female friends at that point was a walk to the corner shop. You haven't lived, haven't really suffered, until you have heard someone say to you that it is not you, it is the wheelchair. We're no different from animals, really. When the male lions get old and weak the females bugger off and find a younger, stronger partner. So it is with us. It's not pretty and if you think about it too much there is only darkness, but that is our society.
Yet this does not make it completely impossible to find a partner. I am living proof that it is possible to have a disability and look like the back of a 10A and still have a meaningful relationship. And before that some less meaningful ones. You just need a shred of charisma and a modicum of intelligence. These things didn't get me anywhere when I was 14 but you will find that they are more effective as you get older. Do I think I would have been more popular had I been able bodied? Almost certainly, but then if my auntie had bollocks she would by my uncle. If you really, really can't get any then here is what you should do. Save your money and buy yourself a whore. Able bodied people can pontificate all they wish about the seediness of prostitution but the fact is that I know people who have reached a ripe old age with their virginity in tact. What kind of a society would decree, under those circumstances, that prostitution does not have a place?
Just do me a favour, will you? If you are going to take my advice and fill the physical void in your life using the contents of your wallet, don't be going on television shouting about it. Don't feed the voyeurism. Your sex life is nobody else's business but your own in any case. Channel Four's decision to screen a documentary about the sex lives of disabled people seems to me to be as arbitrary as airing a similar documentary about the sex lives of people who shop at Tesco. It's perverse that they think that the sex lives of disabled people are either any more interesting or any more of their concern than anyone else's. And what is more disturbing is that they are right in their assertion that the cretins who live among us will sit and watch it. As if it will tell them anything about how the other half live. You have learned more about the subject from reading this page than any overly intrusive, saddo-fest documentary could ever provide.
God I'm so fucking angry again now. And I thought this would help..........
Tonight Channel Four will cover themselves in disgrace with the airing of a film about the sex lives of disabled people. Now you might think it slightly arse-about-face of me to write a scathing attack on such a programme without actually having seen it, but I'm afraid I don't have the mental strength to sit through it. After 30 seconds of their previous effort on the subject, 'The Undateables', I look back and remember how this made me feel and consider myself a danger to society should I put myself through this kind of abject horror again. I don't need to see tonight's airing of 'Sex On Wheels' to hate it. It offends me as a concept. It's pandering to the sick voyeurism of people who want so desperately to feel superior to someone else.
Let's start with the title anyway. Sex On Wheels. Who came up with that? It sounds like something that Brian Potter might sing in tribute to Kings Of Leon on Talent Night at The Phoenix. Apart from anything else, it's misleading. Normally one does not have sex on wheels. No more than one sleeps on wheels or one takes a fucking bath on wheels. Read the bio, I was not born in a wheelchair because my mother would never have survived. Nor therefore, am I tied to it, despite my inability to walk. My wheelchair doesn't have brakes, and so to have sex on wheels would be frankly impractical and probably quite dangerous. Too much of that and my partner might very well end up in need of a wheelchair herself. The need for brakes on wheelchairs is a myth, by the way. I can't tell you how many bus or train drivers I have wanted to disembowel for asking me if I've 'got my brake on' when I get on board. They only stop a tiny hair short of rubbing you on the head when they ask. The implication that able bodied people know more about how to ensure the safety of disabled passengers is beyond absurd.
Back at the ranch, the plot that is, what really offends me about Sex On Wheels and it's cheaply-made, turgid brethren are the people who take part. Why the fuck would you want to put yourself through this level of humiliation? To be on television? That's the kind of mentality that sub-humans like Jeremy Kyle make a living on. Nobody knows any better than me that it is more difficult to 'get some' when you have a disability than if you do not. It wasn't until my friends started camping out with girls in tents at about 14 years of age that I actually considered myself to be any different to any of them. I'd missed out on other stuff, like football, but I replaced that with basketball. Basketball was my football, and it took me further and allowed me to travel far more than I would have been able to in the St.Helens Junior Combination. But camping out with girls in tents is not something that can be so easily substituted. It's little exaggeration to say that the nearest I got to intimacy with any of my female friends at that point was a walk to the corner shop. You haven't lived, haven't really suffered, until you have heard someone say to you that it is not you, it is the wheelchair. We're no different from animals, really. When the male lions get old and weak the females bugger off and find a younger, stronger partner. So it is with us. It's not pretty and if you think about it too much there is only darkness, but that is our society.
Yet this does not make it completely impossible to find a partner. I am living proof that it is possible to have a disability and look like the back of a 10A and still have a meaningful relationship. And before that some less meaningful ones. You just need a shred of charisma and a modicum of intelligence. These things didn't get me anywhere when I was 14 but you will find that they are more effective as you get older. Do I think I would have been more popular had I been able bodied? Almost certainly, but then if my auntie had bollocks she would by my uncle. If you really, really can't get any then here is what you should do. Save your money and buy yourself a whore. Able bodied people can pontificate all they wish about the seediness of prostitution but the fact is that I know people who have reached a ripe old age with their virginity in tact. What kind of a society would decree, under those circumstances, that prostitution does not have a place?
Just do me a favour, will you? If you are going to take my advice and fill the physical void in your life using the contents of your wallet, don't be going on television shouting about it. Don't feed the voyeurism. Your sex life is nobody else's business but your own in any case. Channel Four's decision to screen a documentary about the sex lives of disabled people seems to me to be as arbitrary as airing a similar documentary about the sex lives of people who shop at Tesco. It's perverse that they think that the sex lives of disabled people are either any more interesting or any more of their concern than anyone else's. And what is more disturbing is that they are right in their assertion that the cretins who live among us will sit and watch it. As if it will tell them anything about how the other half live. You have learned more about the subject from reading this page than any overly intrusive, saddo-fest documentary could ever provide.
God I'm so fucking angry again now. And I thought this would help..........
Tuesday, 30 April 2013
Iron Man 3 - Reel Health & Safety
Most of you will already have worked out why this column is called Memoirs Of A Fire Hazard. You're a particularly clever and pretty bunch after all. But for those of you who haven't, I have again today experienced another fine example of the reason for this somewhat unusual title.
First things first I have been off work today. I had to take Emma to the hospital. She's ok. There's no fire. But it's always best to set your mind at rest and get things sorted quickly if you can. Unless you're me, in which case you find out that you have kidney problems and then spend the next seven years avoiding any medical advice whatsoever. Anyway, while we were winding our way through the new building at Whiston Hospital, through its various mult-coloured sections (we wanted yellow and it is a very, very good job we knew that) we came a cross a sign which said;
WHEELCHAIRS
Beside it was an arrow pointing left and the bog-standard, spike-up-its-arse disabled persons symbol. It's no wonder none of us can walk when we spend our time impaled on protruding objects. So anyway even though I could see a door in front of me leading to where I thought we should be going, I followed the arrow. It's instinctive. Every time you see that symbol and an arrow you think it means that this is the way you should go if you need wheelchair access. In fact, on this occasion, it meant literally what it said;
WHEELCHAIRS
Behind the screen where the arrow led were three or four battered, old-style NHS wheelchairs which must pass as the hospital's supply of loan chairs for day visitors without one. Or who knows? People who are stupid enough to have turned up without theirs. It happens, as anyone who read the story about me arriving at work without my wheels will testify. Since I was not the patient today the worst part of our visit after that is having to sit in the waiting room for 35 minutes after Emma's appointment time with Jeremy Kyle on the small television in the corner. That show is just one long argument and I really, really don't get why anyone would want to sit through it. If you want an argument, go and tell your other half they need to lose a few pounds.
So after doing something a little unpleasant we had decided we would do something nice later on in the day. That meant a visit to Reel Cinema in Widnes to see Iron Man 3. We chose Reel because we like Nandos which is just nearby. What with the hospital and everything and the way the wind was blowing and the alignment of the stars and whatever, it transpired that it was better to see the film first before we ate. Now previous experience at Reel tells me that I have to ask them if I can have a seat, and not just a space for my wheelchair. Believe it or not I prefer to take the opportunity to get out of my wheelchair when I am watching a film. Yes I know, I don't sleep in it either. Incredible.
So I ask the girl if I can have a seat;
"Yes of course, you'll need to leave your chair outside, though."
Excuse me?
She wants me to leave my chair outside. The one thing without which I shall be spending the night in the theatre, she wants me to leave outside by the side of the popcorn kiosk. People don't steal wheelchairs in the way that dogs don't bite. And besides, you will find that most wheelchair users are very reluctant to let their wheelchairs out of their sight even if they are not currently using them. I have this problem on planes whenever Emma and I fly anywhere. Airline staff seem to think a replacement which is 20 times wider than my arse and 40 times longer than my legs is acceptable. A wheelchair is a very personal thing, much like your legs. And if that sounds like we want it both ways then yes we do, what's so wrong with that? We want to be treated as humans, independent of a piece of metal and rubber, but at the same time we don't want to leave that piece of metal unattended in a public place. And we don't want to use anyone else's till we get to the fucking carousel. Is any of this making sense?
"No, I'm afraid I can't do that." I say, quite prepared to leave if need be;
"It's company policy, because of health and safety."
And there we have it right there. I'm a health and safety risk. A Fire Hazard, if you will. I stick to my guns because I know it has rock all to do with health and safety and more to do with the fact that they know that if I buy a seat and put my chair in a space then they will have one less ticket to sell. But there is no fucker here anyway so the debate is utterly puerile. And besides I'm right. As fucking usual, eh?
Eventually we convince the girl that it will be ok for me to leave my chair in the space and transfer my person (remember him?) to a chair. This is also probably a good time to mention that there were signs all over the place apologising for the fact that they had no 'carbonated drinks'. That means coke and everything like it. And they have the cheek to grumble over where my empty fucking wheelchair will sit? Christ's Arse!
The film itself was all good fun. I used to have a film column but I found that nobody read it because they didn't want to spoil anything they wanted to go and see later, and they didn't want to read about anything they weren't interested in seeing. I really don't know how Roger Ebert made a living. Save for the fact that he was a lot better at writing than I am. The girls at work had told me that Iron Man 3 was really good but they would, they're girls, and girls are pre-programmed to like Robert Downey Jr especially when he is throwing bad guys around and making cheap gags and behaving with an unpalatable amount of smugness. And no I am not bitter. Much. Look, it's a super-hero film and inevitably in super-hero films the climactic scenes tend to drag for me because you know what is going to happen. At one point I was sure that characters were dying more than once, which I found a stretch, but then I might have missed something important.
But not as important as MY wheelchair.
First things first I have been off work today. I had to take Emma to the hospital. She's ok. There's no fire. But it's always best to set your mind at rest and get things sorted quickly if you can. Unless you're me, in which case you find out that you have kidney problems and then spend the next seven years avoiding any medical advice whatsoever. Anyway, while we were winding our way through the new building at Whiston Hospital, through its various mult-coloured sections (we wanted yellow and it is a very, very good job we knew that) we came a cross a sign which said;
WHEELCHAIRS
Beside it was an arrow pointing left and the bog-standard, spike-up-its-arse disabled persons symbol. It's no wonder none of us can walk when we spend our time impaled on protruding objects. So anyway even though I could see a door in front of me leading to where I thought we should be going, I followed the arrow. It's instinctive. Every time you see that symbol and an arrow you think it means that this is the way you should go if you need wheelchair access. In fact, on this occasion, it meant literally what it said;
WHEELCHAIRS
Behind the screen where the arrow led were three or four battered, old-style NHS wheelchairs which must pass as the hospital's supply of loan chairs for day visitors without one. Or who knows? People who are stupid enough to have turned up without theirs. It happens, as anyone who read the story about me arriving at work without my wheels will testify. Since I was not the patient today the worst part of our visit after that is having to sit in the waiting room for 35 minutes after Emma's appointment time with Jeremy Kyle on the small television in the corner. That show is just one long argument and I really, really don't get why anyone would want to sit through it. If you want an argument, go and tell your other half they need to lose a few pounds.
So after doing something a little unpleasant we had decided we would do something nice later on in the day. That meant a visit to Reel Cinema in Widnes to see Iron Man 3. We chose Reel because we like Nandos which is just nearby. What with the hospital and everything and the way the wind was blowing and the alignment of the stars and whatever, it transpired that it was better to see the film first before we ate. Now previous experience at Reel tells me that I have to ask them if I can have a seat, and not just a space for my wheelchair. Believe it or not I prefer to take the opportunity to get out of my wheelchair when I am watching a film. Yes I know, I don't sleep in it either. Incredible.
So I ask the girl if I can have a seat;
"Yes of course, you'll need to leave your chair outside, though."
Excuse me?
She wants me to leave my chair outside. The one thing without which I shall be spending the night in the theatre, she wants me to leave outside by the side of the popcorn kiosk. People don't steal wheelchairs in the way that dogs don't bite. And besides, you will find that most wheelchair users are very reluctant to let their wheelchairs out of their sight even if they are not currently using them. I have this problem on planes whenever Emma and I fly anywhere. Airline staff seem to think a replacement which is 20 times wider than my arse and 40 times longer than my legs is acceptable. A wheelchair is a very personal thing, much like your legs. And if that sounds like we want it both ways then yes we do, what's so wrong with that? We want to be treated as humans, independent of a piece of metal and rubber, but at the same time we don't want to leave that piece of metal unattended in a public place. And we don't want to use anyone else's till we get to the fucking carousel. Is any of this making sense?
"No, I'm afraid I can't do that." I say, quite prepared to leave if need be;
"It's company policy, because of health and safety."
And there we have it right there. I'm a health and safety risk. A Fire Hazard, if you will. I stick to my guns because I know it has rock all to do with health and safety and more to do with the fact that they know that if I buy a seat and put my chair in a space then they will have one less ticket to sell. But there is no fucker here anyway so the debate is utterly puerile. And besides I'm right. As fucking usual, eh?
Eventually we convince the girl that it will be ok for me to leave my chair in the space and transfer my person (remember him?) to a chair. This is also probably a good time to mention that there were signs all over the place apologising for the fact that they had no 'carbonated drinks'. That means coke and everything like it. And they have the cheek to grumble over where my empty fucking wheelchair will sit? Christ's Arse!
The film itself was all good fun. I used to have a film column but I found that nobody read it because they didn't want to spoil anything they wanted to go and see later, and they didn't want to read about anything they weren't interested in seeing. I really don't know how Roger Ebert made a living. Save for the fact that he was a lot better at writing than I am. The girls at work had told me that Iron Man 3 was really good but they would, they're girls, and girls are pre-programmed to like Robert Downey Jr especially when he is throwing bad guys around and making cheap gags and behaving with an unpalatable amount of smugness. And no I am not bitter. Much. Look, it's a super-hero film and inevitably in super-hero films the climactic scenes tend to drag for me because you know what is going to happen. At one point I was sure that characters were dying more than once, which I found a stretch, but then I might have missed something important.
But not as important as MY wheelchair.
Monday, 29 April 2013
The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Biff
I'm so fucking sick of myself. Why don't I, instead of updating my Facebook status 100 times a day, do a few more lengthier articles with a bit more depth? Honestly, yesterday (Sunday) I updated my status no less than six fucking times throughout the day. On one occasion I did so just to vent my spleen at James Fucking Nesbitt for the heinous crime of being a Manchester United fan. Ok so there is some justification for that, but it doesn't make it any more interesting. By the end of the day I was reduced to simpy announcing that I was 'not feeling too chipper'. By which point nobody was listening not even, as the Hootie song might have it, the trees.
So let me tell you about my foray into the world of roadwork. Not wearing a hard helmet (please) and digging around randomly to cause traffic congestion, but actually getting out there on the roads to try and improve my general fitness. Since my not-trumpeted retirement from wheelchair basketball nearly seven years ago I have morphed into a Homer-shaped ball of biffiness and something has to be done. I've tried the gym but it's useless. You can't get much aerobic fitness from lifting weights, so sessions quickly become dispiriting. Especially when the rugby players and the plastic glamour models are pounding the steppers all around you. Actually, I quite liked the plastic glamour models.
On the road you can be on your own, with nobody to have to compare yourself to. I was inspired to do this by a friend of mine who has recently taken to running and has lost a good few stones in weight in the process. Both my technological duncery and my disinclination to take the trouble to top up my phone meant that I had to download the free version of the Runkeeper app for my phone, which uses GPS to track how far I go. All well and good, except it takes a full minute to find your location when you activate it. It's a minute you can spend either on your way regardless, or sat outside your house waiting for it to find you while the clock ticks, robbing you of precious seconds for your records. I choose the latter and just knock a minute off when I get back. It's unscientific, but it is at least consistent.
I started with a gentle push to Sherdley Park with Emma. We did one circuit around the park and came home, which left us with a grand total of 3.2 miles that first day. Since when she has come down with a cold, a cough and problems with her ears. Exercise makes you ill, officially. All of which has meant that I have had to go out on my own for the last couple of weeks. The first of those occasions I chose to try and make it towards Prescot. This quickly turned into the worst decision since Bowie's latest comeback. Don't you hate that fucking advert? It's just noise? And this man is a legend. Anyway, I'm digressing just a little there. It was a poor decision because between my house and Prescot is Scholes Lane, and Scholes Lane is long, uphill and incredibly steep. It seems to go on forever, and you cannot imagine how soul destroying it is to reach the top, haul yourself over the road to The Grapes and find that you have managed a quite apologetic 1.7 miles. If I had gone straight back home at that point I would have made it to 3.4, which is more than I had managed on my first attempt but not as many as I wanted. So I carried on to The Wellington which took me to just a tick over 2 miles, and within a hare's bollock of a coronary.
Typically, and in keeping with my fuckwittery, I had to share this information on Facebook immediately. As if sharing it with others would somehow motivate me or keep my interest. When I did I was informed by a friend that he goes on a 14 mile push around the roads near his home. I couldn't get near 14 miles in my sorry state, but I knew that if I could find a flatter route than the one to The Wellington then I could manage more than the 4.1 miles I eventually ended up with by the time I got back from The Welly.
So the next time I decided to push to the retail park on the edge of St.Helens town centre. There's a Boots there where I get my meds, but I declined to go in because whenever I do there is a near unresolvable misunderstanding and ensuing drama which simply does not allow time for getting fit. I took the long route down Dorothy Street, all the way up Elephant Lane (if you live outside Thatto Heath I assure you I am quite aware that I might aswell be describing areas on Mars), down the linkway past the gyppo caravan park, and then left at the McDonalds and on through the retail park past Boots. When I got to Smyth's toy store next door I looked at the Runkeeper and it crushed my spirit once more, informing me that I had managed 1.9 miles. It felt like 1.9 marathons. Determined to get past the 4.1 miles I had already done I began an absurd lap of honour around the retail park. Bemused shoppers looked on as I pointlessly rolled around the car park with no intention of entering a shop, much less buy anything. This might have provided a mild moment of interest for the several men I saw who's spirits looked utterly drained at the prospect of another four hours in B & Q, but this is an optimistic view. Back at Smyth's five minutes later and I had still only managed 2.3 miles. Add that to the 1.9 to get back (the reverse journey) and I was still only looking at 4.2 miles. Another lap. More bemused onlookers, one suspicious glance from security at PC World. Ironic that they might think I am the thief.
On the way back I bumped into the inevitable dog-walker down by the caravan park. Now, I am not scared of dogs, but I do detest it when the dog is straining on his leash to get to you, eyeballing you and salivating and his owners says;
"It's alright, he doesn't bite."
Surely this is what every dog owner says 40 seconds before their beloved pet locks his jaws around some poor unfortunate's head?
There's also a brief exchange of pleasantries with a couple of gyppo children and a quite agonising last few hundred yards past the League Of Gentleman shop on Elephant Lane before I get back and whack my unimpressive achievements straight on to Facebook. This time, I aim for irony with the admission that the marathon is looking a long way off. About 21.5 miles off to be precise. And anyway, if I enter the London Marathon there is a good chance that some female runner will step in front of me and ruin my chair and my race, and then I'll get all the blame from the BBC. And nobody wants that. But maybe I will enter a shorter charity event in the not too distant future. A five or a 10K might not be beyond me judging by what I have done so far.
Just don't expect me to keep it off fucking Facebook.
So let me tell you about my foray into the world of roadwork. Not wearing a hard helmet (please) and digging around randomly to cause traffic congestion, but actually getting out there on the roads to try and improve my general fitness. Since my not-trumpeted retirement from wheelchair basketball nearly seven years ago I have morphed into a Homer-shaped ball of biffiness and something has to be done. I've tried the gym but it's useless. You can't get much aerobic fitness from lifting weights, so sessions quickly become dispiriting. Especially when the rugby players and the plastic glamour models are pounding the steppers all around you. Actually, I quite liked the plastic glamour models.
On the road you can be on your own, with nobody to have to compare yourself to. I was inspired to do this by a friend of mine who has recently taken to running and has lost a good few stones in weight in the process. Both my technological duncery and my disinclination to take the trouble to top up my phone meant that I had to download the free version of the Runkeeper app for my phone, which uses GPS to track how far I go. All well and good, except it takes a full minute to find your location when you activate it. It's a minute you can spend either on your way regardless, or sat outside your house waiting for it to find you while the clock ticks, robbing you of precious seconds for your records. I choose the latter and just knock a minute off when I get back. It's unscientific, but it is at least consistent.
I started with a gentle push to Sherdley Park with Emma. We did one circuit around the park and came home, which left us with a grand total of 3.2 miles that first day. Since when she has come down with a cold, a cough and problems with her ears. Exercise makes you ill, officially. All of which has meant that I have had to go out on my own for the last couple of weeks. The first of those occasions I chose to try and make it towards Prescot. This quickly turned into the worst decision since Bowie's latest comeback. Don't you hate that fucking advert? It's just noise? And this man is a legend. Anyway, I'm digressing just a little there. It was a poor decision because between my house and Prescot is Scholes Lane, and Scholes Lane is long, uphill and incredibly steep. It seems to go on forever, and you cannot imagine how soul destroying it is to reach the top, haul yourself over the road to The Grapes and find that you have managed a quite apologetic 1.7 miles. If I had gone straight back home at that point I would have made it to 3.4, which is more than I had managed on my first attempt but not as many as I wanted. So I carried on to The Wellington which took me to just a tick over 2 miles, and within a hare's bollock of a coronary.
Typically, and in keeping with my fuckwittery, I had to share this information on Facebook immediately. As if sharing it with others would somehow motivate me or keep my interest. When I did I was informed by a friend that he goes on a 14 mile push around the roads near his home. I couldn't get near 14 miles in my sorry state, but I knew that if I could find a flatter route than the one to The Wellington then I could manage more than the 4.1 miles I eventually ended up with by the time I got back from The Welly.
So the next time I decided to push to the retail park on the edge of St.Helens town centre. There's a Boots there where I get my meds, but I declined to go in because whenever I do there is a near unresolvable misunderstanding and ensuing drama which simply does not allow time for getting fit. I took the long route down Dorothy Street, all the way up Elephant Lane (if you live outside Thatto Heath I assure you I am quite aware that I might aswell be describing areas on Mars), down the linkway past the gyppo caravan park, and then left at the McDonalds and on through the retail park past Boots. When I got to Smyth's toy store next door I looked at the Runkeeper and it crushed my spirit once more, informing me that I had managed 1.9 miles. It felt like 1.9 marathons. Determined to get past the 4.1 miles I had already done I began an absurd lap of honour around the retail park. Bemused shoppers looked on as I pointlessly rolled around the car park with no intention of entering a shop, much less buy anything. This might have provided a mild moment of interest for the several men I saw who's spirits looked utterly drained at the prospect of another four hours in B & Q, but this is an optimistic view. Back at Smyth's five minutes later and I had still only managed 2.3 miles. Add that to the 1.9 to get back (the reverse journey) and I was still only looking at 4.2 miles. Another lap. More bemused onlookers, one suspicious glance from security at PC World. Ironic that they might think I am the thief.
On the way back I bumped into the inevitable dog-walker down by the caravan park. Now, I am not scared of dogs, but I do detest it when the dog is straining on his leash to get to you, eyeballing you and salivating and his owners says;
"It's alright, he doesn't bite."
Surely this is what every dog owner says 40 seconds before their beloved pet locks his jaws around some poor unfortunate's head?
There's also a brief exchange of pleasantries with a couple of gyppo children and a quite agonising last few hundred yards past the League Of Gentleman shop on Elephant Lane before I get back and whack my unimpressive achievements straight on to Facebook. This time, I aim for irony with the admission that the marathon is looking a long way off. About 21.5 miles off to be precise. And anyway, if I enter the London Marathon there is a good chance that some female runner will step in front of me and ruin my chair and my race, and then I'll get all the blame from the BBC. And nobody wants that. But maybe I will enter a shorter charity event in the not too distant future. A five or a 10K might not be beyond me judging by what I have done so far.
Just don't expect me to keep it off fucking Facebook.
Friday, 26 April 2013
The Myth Of Friday
A little analysis of one's own work is a scary but a good thing. Looking back on some of the recent entries on these pages I have noticed that there has been far too much mention of Friday, and how absolutely fucking awful it is and how I hate it.
This is not a fault with my work, exactly. It's just that too much repetition is a bad thing. Originality is what we are after and so now, once and for all, I will attempt to put the whole Friday Is Shit thing to bed by dedicating an entire column to it.
The reason that Friday has become an issue is because whenever it rears its ugly head, once a week usually, a colleague of mine revels in pointing out to me that it is indeed Friday. The implication is that I should therefore be happy. Unfortunately I am a depressive, and therefore unlikely to be happy at any given moment. Annoyingly, I am not the kind of depressive who is blessed with a level of genius and who swings between manic highs and crashing lows. Either I feel utterly rubbish but not rubbish enough to start the car with the exhaust sealed, or I feel neutral. OK. Alright. Getting by. I am not at home to happiness.
Even if I were the type of person who filled easily with the joys of the blooming season, I still can't see the logic in being happy on a Friday morning, or at any hour before that when you arrive home from work. You still have to get through the working day, just like any other day of the week. That's ok if you like your job. I have heard some people claim that they do. But then I have also heard some people claim to be happy and I don't really believe that either. As I alluded to on a recent Facebook status (microblog, anyone?) only the deeply stupid among us can be happy all the time. Fine, if you want to pat Friday on the back do it when you get home when it is actually going in your favour, and you can put your feet up and watch whatever mind-crushing shite floats your boat.
No my friends Friday is a teasing whore. It is a bitch who fills you with promise and then, just as you are about to enjoy it, slaps you round the chops shouting 'it's Monday!' at you and laughing. Friday is massively over-rated. It is the 'Mad Men' of weekdays. The day I left my wheels at home was a Friday. Logic demands that this could have happened any day of the week, but by the same token it is also true that any other day of the week brings the same promise as Friday's supporters claim that it brings. If something good were to happen to me, and I am not for a moement suggesting that it will, it could just as easily be on a Tuesday as a Friday. The same Tuesday that my colleague says is the work of the devil himself, based on the quite berserk logic that you have just got over Monday and you are still no nearer to Friday. No nearer to another mundane day of the week which you will spend nailed to your desk looking at a spreadsheet wishing your life away and wondering what else you could be doing. In my case, it is a desk which is so soundproof and bricked up as to render me socially excluded. My desk at work socially excludes me more than my disability. My disability looks on in envy at my desk as the standard bearer in the field of socially excluding me.
So let us dispel the Myth Of Friday and instead accept the fact that the only days of the week that we really enjoy are Saturdays and Sundays. Saturdays and Sundays for me consist mainly of lounging around watching sport, eating and drinking badly and never, under any circumstances, paying even the remotest attention to a spreadsheet or a fucking travel claim. I do keep in touch with some work colleagues via the gift of Facebook over the weekend but that is not the same thing at all as something which is work-related. They are all extremely nice people and in no way represent the drudgery of my daily grind. They just happen to be unfortunate enough to share an office with a miserable, depressive, Friday-hating little fuck like me.
It'll soon be Saturday........
This is not a fault with my work, exactly. It's just that too much repetition is a bad thing. Originality is what we are after and so now, once and for all, I will attempt to put the whole Friday Is Shit thing to bed by dedicating an entire column to it.
The reason that Friday has become an issue is because whenever it rears its ugly head, once a week usually, a colleague of mine revels in pointing out to me that it is indeed Friday. The implication is that I should therefore be happy. Unfortunately I am a depressive, and therefore unlikely to be happy at any given moment. Annoyingly, I am not the kind of depressive who is blessed with a level of genius and who swings between manic highs and crashing lows. Either I feel utterly rubbish but not rubbish enough to start the car with the exhaust sealed, or I feel neutral. OK. Alright. Getting by. I am not at home to happiness.
Even if I were the type of person who filled easily with the joys of the blooming season, I still can't see the logic in being happy on a Friday morning, or at any hour before that when you arrive home from work. You still have to get through the working day, just like any other day of the week. That's ok if you like your job. I have heard some people claim that they do. But then I have also heard some people claim to be happy and I don't really believe that either. As I alluded to on a recent Facebook status (microblog, anyone?) only the deeply stupid among us can be happy all the time. Fine, if you want to pat Friday on the back do it when you get home when it is actually going in your favour, and you can put your feet up and watch whatever mind-crushing shite floats your boat.
No my friends Friday is a teasing whore. It is a bitch who fills you with promise and then, just as you are about to enjoy it, slaps you round the chops shouting 'it's Monday!' at you and laughing. Friday is massively over-rated. It is the 'Mad Men' of weekdays. The day I left my wheels at home was a Friday. Logic demands that this could have happened any day of the week, but by the same token it is also true that any other day of the week brings the same promise as Friday's supporters claim that it brings. If something good were to happen to me, and I am not for a moement suggesting that it will, it could just as easily be on a Tuesday as a Friday. The same Tuesday that my colleague says is the work of the devil himself, based on the quite berserk logic that you have just got over Monday and you are still no nearer to Friday. No nearer to another mundane day of the week which you will spend nailed to your desk looking at a spreadsheet wishing your life away and wondering what else you could be doing. In my case, it is a desk which is so soundproof and bricked up as to render me socially excluded. My desk at work socially excludes me more than my disability. My disability looks on in envy at my desk as the standard bearer in the field of socially excluding me.
So let us dispel the Myth Of Friday and instead accept the fact that the only days of the week that we really enjoy are Saturdays and Sundays. Saturdays and Sundays for me consist mainly of lounging around watching sport, eating and drinking badly and never, under any circumstances, paying even the remotest attention to a spreadsheet or a fucking travel claim. I do keep in touch with some work colleagues via the gift of Facebook over the weekend but that is not the same thing at all as something which is work-related. They are all extremely nice people and in no way represent the drudgery of my daily grind. They just happen to be unfortunate enough to share an office with a miserable, depressive, Friday-hating little fuck like me.
It'll soon be Saturday........
Wednesday, 24 April 2013
The Meds
I don't think, even in my blogging heyday, I ever published two pieces on the same day.
Blogging heyday. What the fuck? By this I mean the halcyon age when I had....oh.....10 regular readers I could name and a new, interesting and challenging subject to barf on about every day.
Regardless I feel the need to give it a go for a second time today. All of which conjures up dull analogies about waiting for buses for hours before 26 turn up at once. Only these buses are all going to Dullsville, via a stupid story about medication and whatever else springs forth into my distorted, tortured mind this Wednesday night along the way.
So the medication. To cut an agonisingly long story short I need to take a type of medication which protects my kidneys. We could go over old ground about how I went to the doctor one day to ask about a problem with my bladder and ended up in what looked and sounded like a tumble dryer. I was having an MRI, and there followed the interesting hypothesis that my kidneys may not last until tea-time that same day, followed by several weeks of depression as I contemplated the end of the life which, at that time and at various points even now, depresses me in any case. There is no point trying to understand the mind of someone who has bouts of depression but who at the same time finds the thought of ending his depression via the outlet of death to be...wait for it.... depressing. We're a different breed. Actually, I'm not sure there are any others like me.
All of that was six years ago. By now, the realisation that my kidneys are going to last somewhat longer than predicted has kicked in. Death is off the table. Just get on with it, and go and get your meds every month. I collect these from the same branch of Boots on the retail park once a month, and had had several discussions with Emma about the need to do this before last weekend. Her parents were coming to stay (which is a blog that nobody dare write) so there would be no opportunity over the weekend itself. And we could have sworn I was running out.
Now probably because Emma was off sick last Monday and Tuesday it slipped my mind on those days. And then on Thursday she had ordered an online shopping delivery from Tesco. We've long since given up the pretence that we actually intend to physically go shopping. Except for French loaves. Emma says she doesn't trust the online system to come up with fresh enough French loaves. It seems to me that if a system is sophisticated enough to arrange for two men to drive to your home in a large van containing everything you ordered (or close to it) at the touch of a few buttons, then fresh French loaves should be do-able. But not so. Since Emma's parents were coming up on the Friday that just left the Wednesday. But we must have forgotten to do it then also.
Only I didn't know this until today. On Monday night I noticed that my current supply of meds was running a bit low. Normally I just leave the opened box on the kitchen worktop but, with guests due, there had been much tidying of such items and general spring cleaning going on. The meds were not on the kitchen worktop and, when I asked Emma she said that the only box she had thrown away had been empty. At this point I will accept culpability for failing to conduct a more thorough search. It is a terribly male problem, that of seemingly being unable to search for and therefore find anything that is not placed directly under the nose. If it was not where I thought I left it, and in the only other place which I considered logically possible, then we had either not picked them up or Emma had thrown them away.
The story was much the same on Tuesday, so today after work I gave them a call that went a little something like this;
'Hello Boots Pharmacy!", voice going up as if they were asking me if they were indeed Boots Pharmacy. Surely they should know? But I do this myself, to be fair. Hello PLSU? Well, yes it is, obviously. Anyway.....
'Yeah, I just wanted to check something. This is going to sound a bit stupid but can you tell me if my prescription has been collected?'
There isn't a pause but I imagine one nonetheless. One which begins with supressed giggles and turns into a full blown conversation between the entire United Kingdom Boots staff about how some mad old bloke has rung up because he can't remember whether he has picked up his prescription, or even what his name is or where he lives. Maybe he doesn't know because he can't get here himself and he can't find out from the person who is supposed to go on his behalf. Either way I am being pitied in my mind about now, and anyone in my situation treats pity with the kind of disdain with which Elvis Costello regards Margaret Thatcher. Finally, the response comes....
"OK, what's your name please?"
I'm certain she's still giggling.
"Stephen Orford."
There I said it. Stephen Orford is someone who can't remember whether he went to the chemist to pick up his potentially life-saving meds (though even the specialist must be starting to question his original forecast after all these years) less than a week ago.
"I'll just check for you, Mr Orford."
Long, drawn out, awkward pause, last experienced when I naively phoned a girl who had given me her phone number in 1996. That didn't end well....
"Oh yes, Mr Orford, that's here for you to collect."
I end the call sharply and with as much dignity as I can muster, and when I arrive at the pharmacy an hour later nobody makes mention of it except me. Why don't I just stop with the self-mockery at this point? It's like I'm doing it to make conversation because otherwise we'll be talking about the weather or, God forbid, my all-time most hated topic of dullard conversation, that one about how fucking close we are to Friday. Or worse than that, how it actually is Friday when it is Friday. Friday's a fucking working day!
I can't remember whether or not I picked up my meds less than a week ago, but I know that Friday is no different to any other fucking day of the week.
I'll leave you to it now. I think the pulsating rush of being able to blog twice in a day after such a long drought has got to me a little.
Blogging heyday. What the fuck? By this I mean the halcyon age when I had....oh.....10 regular readers I could name and a new, interesting and challenging subject to barf on about every day.
Regardless I feel the need to give it a go for a second time today. All of which conjures up dull analogies about waiting for buses for hours before 26 turn up at once. Only these buses are all going to Dullsville, via a stupid story about medication and whatever else springs forth into my distorted, tortured mind this Wednesday night along the way.
So the medication. To cut an agonisingly long story short I need to take a type of medication which protects my kidneys. We could go over old ground about how I went to the doctor one day to ask about a problem with my bladder and ended up in what looked and sounded like a tumble dryer. I was having an MRI, and there followed the interesting hypothesis that my kidneys may not last until tea-time that same day, followed by several weeks of depression as I contemplated the end of the life which, at that time and at various points even now, depresses me in any case. There is no point trying to understand the mind of someone who has bouts of depression but who at the same time finds the thought of ending his depression via the outlet of death to be...wait for it.... depressing. We're a different breed. Actually, I'm not sure there are any others like me.
All of that was six years ago. By now, the realisation that my kidneys are going to last somewhat longer than predicted has kicked in. Death is off the table. Just get on with it, and go and get your meds every month. I collect these from the same branch of Boots on the retail park once a month, and had had several discussions with Emma about the need to do this before last weekend. Her parents were coming to stay (which is a blog that nobody dare write) so there would be no opportunity over the weekend itself. And we could have sworn I was running out.
Now probably because Emma was off sick last Monday and Tuesday it slipped my mind on those days. And then on Thursday she had ordered an online shopping delivery from Tesco. We've long since given up the pretence that we actually intend to physically go shopping. Except for French loaves. Emma says she doesn't trust the online system to come up with fresh enough French loaves. It seems to me that if a system is sophisticated enough to arrange for two men to drive to your home in a large van containing everything you ordered (or close to it) at the touch of a few buttons, then fresh French loaves should be do-able. But not so. Since Emma's parents were coming up on the Friday that just left the Wednesday. But we must have forgotten to do it then also.
Only I didn't know this until today. On Monday night I noticed that my current supply of meds was running a bit low. Normally I just leave the opened box on the kitchen worktop but, with guests due, there had been much tidying of such items and general spring cleaning going on. The meds were not on the kitchen worktop and, when I asked Emma she said that the only box she had thrown away had been empty. At this point I will accept culpability for failing to conduct a more thorough search. It is a terribly male problem, that of seemingly being unable to search for and therefore find anything that is not placed directly under the nose. If it was not where I thought I left it, and in the only other place which I considered logically possible, then we had either not picked them up or Emma had thrown them away.
The story was much the same on Tuesday, so today after work I gave them a call that went a little something like this;
'Hello Boots Pharmacy!", voice going up as if they were asking me if they were indeed Boots Pharmacy. Surely they should know? But I do this myself, to be fair. Hello PLSU? Well, yes it is, obviously. Anyway.....
'Yeah, I just wanted to check something. This is going to sound a bit stupid but can you tell me if my prescription has been collected?'
There isn't a pause but I imagine one nonetheless. One which begins with supressed giggles and turns into a full blown conversation between the entire United Kingdom Boots staff about how some mad old bloke has rung up because he can't remember whether he has picked up his prescription, or even what his name is or where he lives. Maybe he doesn't know because he can't get here himself and he can't find out from the person who is supposed to go on his behalf. Either way I am being pitied in my mind about now, and anyone in my situation treats pity with the kind of disdain with which Elvis Costello regards Margaret Thatcher. Finally, the response comes....
"OK, what's your name please?"
I'm certain she's still giggling.
"Stephen Orford."
There I said it. Stephen Orford is someone who can't remember whether he went to the chemist to pick up his potentially life-saving meds (though even the specialist must be starting to question his original forecast after all these years) less than a week ago.
"I'll just check for you, Mr Orford."
Long, drawn out, awkward pause, last experienced when I naively phoned a girl who had given me her phone number in 1996. That didn't end well....
"Oh yes, Mr Orford, that's here for you to collect."
I end the call sharply and with as much dignity as I can muster, and when I arrive at the pharmacy an hour later nobody makes mention of it except me. Why don't I just stop with the self-mockery at this point? It's like I'm doing it to make conversation because otherwise we'll be talking about the weather or, God forbid, my all-time most hated topic of dullard conversation, that one about how fucking close we are to Friday. Or worse than that, how it actually is Friday when it is Friday. Friday's a fucking working day!
I can't remember whether or not I picked up my meds less than a week ago, but I know that Friday is no different to any other fucking day of the week.
I'll leave you to it now. I think the pulsating rush of being able to blog twice in a day after such a long drought has got to me a little.
This Is What Happens When You Forget To Charge Your Kindle
It's been on my mind that I haven't written for a while. In fact, my lack of input recently undoubtedly contributes to my general lack of self worth. I just had to go back and delete an extra 'l' from the word 'general'. It's been a long time.
March 15, in fact, when last I soiled these pages with tales of how Emma and I managed to leave my wheels at home after driving to work one day. That's far too long but what do you do? Write something for the sake of writing it? In which case it is likely to be a stream-of-consciousness, formless lot of bollocks which it is so far, or do you wait for something significant or interesting to happen? It could be a while if you do that. I have just spent the morning inserting data on a spreadsheet. Significance and interest seem a world away. In fact, they have fucked off on holiday with joy and hope.
It's lunchtime. I have just been downstairs where I intended to read my book. Nothing life-changing, just a bog-standard Grisham novel about two half-arsed lawyers (very much after my own heart, then) who try to litigate against a massive drug manufacturer. So anyway I switched on the kindle and basically it said no. I had forgotten to charge it. Again. Even had I remembered I would have been out of luck, because I have had my phone on charge all morning. It's limited battery-life has buckled under the strain of my endless Facebook rambles in leiu of anything substantial enough to transfer on to these pages. In leiu of any real writing talent, then.
There's nothing worse than switching on your kindle at lunchtime and realising it has no battery and you have forgotten to charge it. Well there probably is but right now it doesn't seem like there is. Not when I have another afternoon of data entry to look forward to, beginning in approximately 27 minutes time. The race is on for this piece to make any sort of sense before then. If you thought I rambled on Facebook, you have entered a whole new world of rambling by visiting me here. But I thank you for it anyway. It makes it all worthwhile. And anyway, I promised myself that I would get something down on these pages today. Or if not today then certainly this week. The lack of a kindle gave me a window, and has very probably given all of us a headache. I'm trying to work out what to write and you're trying to work out what the fuck I am on about.
I was going to write a piece about Thatcher. For those of you who don't know or who have been living under a rock for the last two weeks the old hag bought it a couple of weeks ago. Now this is undoubtedly sad for somebody somewhere, but it does not justify spending £10million of tax-payers money to send her off in the manner of a war-hero. Personally I'd have paid someone ten bob to drop her down a secret chute into the Mersey (what? you didn't know about the secret chute into the Mersey? Well, it is a secret) but I'm sure the appropriate arrangements were somewhere in between these two extremes. Anyway it all got me very mad, as regular readers of my Facebook 'wisdom' will already know. But in the end I did't write about it here because I had already said it all there. And far more people are likely to read a status on Facebook than a blog like this. That's life. That's 'microblogging', if that word isn't too pretentious and hurl-inducing.
What else could I write about? Luis Suarez is in trouble again. He bit someone. Again. The club have stuck by him. Again. Reputations no longer matter in Premier League football. It's all about business and flipping great sacks of cash and Suarez, his flesh-chomping tomfoolery notwithstanding, is Liverpool's most valuable asset. The club's owners are Americans, making it even less likely that they will take any action which could weaken their overall position. All of which is immoral and makes you feel a bit queasy. But there is not another club in the Premier League who would do anything different to what Liverpool have done. Furthermore, Fergie would probably have Bratislav Ivanovic up on an FA charge for putting his arm in Suarez's mouth if he were the manager of Liverpool. Suarez may choose to leave anyway given the lack of European football on offer at Anfield next season. Ignoring the moral debate, they're taking an awfully big gamble if they are relying on Suarez to repay the faith they have shown in him by sticking around and, perish the thought, behaving himself for five minutes.
Now that I have used the phrase 'perish the thought' in one of my pieces it occurs to me just how rusty I am at all this. I suppose the only answer to that it is to try and do it more often but with all the work I am doing for Redvee, and with spending my days looking at spreadsheets and engaging in some of the most puerile banter since Ziggy Greaves' heyday, I just haven't had the time or, if I'm honest, the dedication. But most of all, what has been lacking, is the inspiration. As crap as it has been over this past month, life has been pretty much devoid of any comedy cock-ups, blatant episodes of discrimination or sickening patronisation to rattle on about with smug, pompous abandon. I'm not in a good literary place at the moment.
But what do you expect? I've just written this piece in 20 minutes in my lunch break. If only that fucking kindle had been charged we could have all saved some valuable time. See you on Facebook.
March 15, in fact, when last I soiled these pages with tales of how Emma and I managed to leave my wheels at home after driving to work one day. That's far too long but what do you do? Write something for the sake of writing it? In which case it is likely to be a stream-of-consciousness, formless lot of bollocks which it is so far, or do you wait for something significant or interesting to happen? It could be a while if you do that. I have just spent the morning inserting data on a spreadsheet. Significance and interest seem a world away. In fact, they have fucked off on holiday with joy and hope.
It's lunchtime. I have just been downstairs where I intended to read my book. Nothing life-changing, just a bog-standard Grisham novel about two half-arsed lawyers (very much after my own heart, then) who try to litigate against a massive drug manufacturer. So anyway I switched on the kindle and basically it said no. I had forgotten to charge it. Again. Even had I remembered I would have been out of luck, because I have had my phone on charge all morning. It's limited battery-life has buckled under the strain of my endless Facebook rambles in leiu of anything substantial enough to transfer on to these pages. In leiu of any real writing talent, then.
There's nothing worse than switching on your kindle at lunchtime and realising it has no battery and you have forgotten to charge it. Well there probably is but right now it doesn't seem like there is. Not when I have another afternoon of data entry to look forward to, beginning in approximately 27 minutes time. The race is on for this piece to make any sort of sense before then. If you thought I rambled on Facebook, you have entered a whole new world of rambling by visiting me here. But I thank you for it anyway. It makes it all worthwhile. And anyway, I promised myself that I would get something down on these pages today. Or if not today then certainly this week. The lack of a kindle gave me a window, and has very probably given all of us a headache. I'm trying to work out what to write and you're trying to work out what the fuck I am on about.
I was going to write a piece about Thatcher. For those of you who don't know or who have been living under a rock for the last two weeks the old hag bought it a couple of weeks ago. Now this is undoubtedly sad for somebody somewhere, but it does not justify spending £10million of tax-payers money to send her off in the manner of a war-hero. Personally I'd have paid someone ten bob to drop her down a secret chute into the Mersey (what? you didn't know about the secret chute into the Mersey? Well, it is a secret) but I'm sure the appropriate arrangements were somewhere in between these two extremes. Anyway it all got me very mad, as regular readers of my Facebook 'wisdom' will already know. But in the end I did't write about it here because I had already said it all there. And far more people are likely to read a status on Facebook than a blog like this. That's life. That's 'microblogging', if that word isn't too pretentious and hurl-inducing.
What else could I write about? Luis Suarez is in trouble again. He bit someone. Again. The club have stuck by him. Again. Reputations no longer matter in Premier League football. It's all about business and flipping great sacks of cash and Suarez, his flesh-chomping tomfoolery notwithstanding, is Liverpool's most valuable asset. The club's owners are Americans, making it even less likely that they will take any action which could weaken their overall position. All of which is immoral and makes you feel a bit queasy. But there is not another club in the Premier League who would do anything different to what Liverpool have done. Furthermore, Fergie would probably have Bratislav Ivanovic up on an FA charge for putting his arm in Suarez's mouth if he were the manager of Liverpool. Suarez may choose to leave anyway given the lack of European football on offer at Anfield next season. Ignoring the moral debate, they're taking an awfully big gamble if they are relying on Suarez to repay the faith they have shown in him by sticking around and, perish the thought, behaving himself for five minutes.
Now that I have used the phrase 'perish the thought' in one of my pieces it occurs to me just how rusty I am at all this. I suppose the only answer to that it is to try and do it more often but with all the work I am doing for Redvee, and with spending my days looking at spreadsheets and engaging in some of the most puerile banter since Ziggy Greaves' heyday, I just haven't had the time or, if I'm honest, the dedication. But most of all, what has been lacking, is the inspiration. As crap as it has been over this past month, life has been pretty much devoid of any comedy cock-ups, blatant episodes of discrimination or sickening patronisation to rattle on about with smug, pompous abandon. I'm not in a good literary place at the moment.
But what do you expect? I've just written this piece in 20 minutes in my lunch break. If only that fucking kindle had been charged we could have all saved some valuable time. See you on Facebook.
Friday, 15 March 2013
Wheels Of Misfortune
There was nothing unusual about the journey to work today.
We were late because we can't get out of bed. We had to stop for petrol because we couldn't be bothered to do so on the way home last night. Emma had to use my card to pay for it because I couldn't be bothered to go out to the cash machine in my lunch hour yesterday. I have too many books to read. None of these things are in any way unusual.
We got stuck in traffic. No matter how late you are, even on a Friday, you can expect to find yourself stuck in traffic on the way to work in the morning. So we crept along in the usual fashion. I sang GooGoo Dolls songs badly and, in places, wrongly, aswell as a few highly similar sounding tunes by The Script. None of these things are remotely unusual.
When we got to work the LJMU catering delivery man was blocking the disabled car park. This is not unusual. There was just enough room to squeeze by him into the first bay which, on a daily basis, seems to have more and more obstacles around it. Wheelie bins mostly, the odd skip makes an appearance to test your driving skills further. None of this is unusual.
Emma got out of the car and as I opened my door she said;
"We're going to have to go home."
She was half-smiling, not seeming overly concerned.
"Why?" I said.
"We haven't brought the wheels with us."
The wheels she is referring to are those usually found on either side of my wheelchair. Somehow we have managed to avoid bringing them with us. At this point I should take a little responsibility. A little. Emma puts the chair in the car in the morning because if I did it then she would have to sit in the back, because I can only put it in the front seat beside me in the driver's seat. I am guilty of taking this rather for granted. Only today she has not done it so she's right. We have to go home.
Before we get out of the gate I compound our error by scratching the car. While I am incredulously taking in the fact that we have come to work without my wheels several new and interesting obstacles appear to have sprouted up behind me in the car park. They may have been there all along actually but I'm too flustered to be sure either way. In any event I reverse straight into one of the wheelie bins, this despite the fact that my car beeps furiously at me whenever I get within the proverbial country mile of colliding with anything located behind me. Call it annoyance, bewilderment, whatever, I have ignored the beeps and bumped the car.
The drive home is particularly quiet. We're not screaming and shouting at each other in the manner of a couple who between them have fucked things up spectacularly and yes, royally. There's just a stunned silence and probably a mutual acceptance that any futher discussion of the situation is superfluous. We just have to get back and pick the bloody wheels up. Emma rings my sister, Helen, firstly to ask if she can find them and reclaim them before they are stolen from the front of my house (Helen lives just down the road, like every member of my family going back about 36 generations), and then when it emerges that Helen is on her way to work, to find out if she has seen the wheels when she passed our house. She hadn't. Not unnaturally, Helen finds the whole situation highly amusing.
Thankfully when we arrive at the house we find the wheels. There is a scary moment when I think that we won't, because they are not strewn across the pavement outside the house in the way I had predicted they would be. Someone, probably our next door neighbour, has very kindly picked them up and rested them against the front door. Emma gets out of the car (I can't, remember?) and puts the wheels back in their rightful place. I phone a work colleague to explain the farcical situation. We go back to work.
By the time I arrive I am almost two hours late. I switch on my phone to find several text messages from my work colleagues, all of which are in various ways mocking me for my lunacy. Replies are as superfluous as trying to discuss how something like this happens, so instead I take it all on the chin and don't mention it to any of them. They'd enjoy it rather too much for my liking and I'm still a bit steamed up about the fact that I have bumped my car to add to my woes.
All of which proves beyond any reasonable doubt that, contrary to the persisent claims of one of my colleagues in particular, Friday is shite. There is no more chance of a Friday at work being enjoyable than there is of any other day at work being enjoyable. It is arrant nonsense to believe it any better just because you get two days off at the end of it. You still have to live it. Friday is fucking crap.
Nothing unusual about that.
We were late because we can't get out of bed. We had to stop for petrol because we couldn't be bothered to do so on the way home last night. Emma had to use my card to pay for it because I couldn't be bothered to go out to the cash machine in my lunch hour yesterday. I have too many books to read. None of these things are in any way unusual.
We got stuck in traffic. No matter how late you are, even on a Friday, you can expect to find yourself stuck in traffic on the way to work in the morning. So we crept along in the usual fashion. I sang GooGoo Dolls songs badly and, in places, wrongly, aswell as a few highly similar sounding tunes by The Script. None of these things are remotely unusual.
When we got to work the LJMU catering delivery man was blocking the disabled car park. This is not unusual. There was just enough room to squeeze by him into the first bay which, on a daily basis, seems to have more and more obstacles around it. Wheelie bins mostly, the odd skip makes an appearance to test your driving skills further. None of this is unusual.
Emma got out of the car and as I opened my door she said;
"We're going to have to go home."
She was half-smiling, not seeming overly concerned.
"Why?" I said.
"We haven't brought the wheels with us."
The wheels she is referring to are those usually found on either side of my wheelchair. Somehow we have managed to avoid bringing them with us. At this point I should take a little responsibility. A little. Emma puts the chair in the car in the morning because if I did it then she would have to sit in the back, because I can only put it in the front seat beside me in the driver's seat. I am guilty of taking this rather for granted. Only today she has not done it so she's right. We have to go home.
Before we get out of the gate I compound our error by scratching the car. While I am incredulously taking in the fact that we have come to work without my wheels several new and interesting obstacles appear to have sprouted up behind me in the car park. They may have been there all along actually but I'm too flustered to be sure either way. In any event I reverse straight into one of the wheelie bins, this despite the fact that my car beeps furiously at me whenever I get within the proverbial country mile of colliding with anything located behind me. Call it annoyance, bewilderment, whatever, I have ignored the beeps and bumped the car.
The drive home is particularly quiet. We're not screaming and shouting at each other in the manner of a couple who between them have fucked things up spectacularly and yes, royally. There's just a stunned silence and probably a mutual acceptance that any futher discussion of the situation is superfluous. We just have to get back and pick the bloody wheels up. Emma rings my sister, Helen, firstly to ask if she can find them and reclaim them before they are stolen from the front of my house (Helen lives just down the road, like every member of my family going back about 36 generations), and then when it emerges that Helen is on her way to work, to find out if she has seen the wheels when she passed our house. She hadn't. Not unnaturally, Helen finds the whole situation highly amusing.
Thankfully when we arrive at the house we find the wheels. There is a scary moment when I think that we won't, because they are not strewn across the pavement outside the house in the way I had predicted they would be. Someone, probably our next door neighbour, has very kindly picked them up and rested them against the front door. Emma gets out of the car (I can't, remember?) and puts the wheels back in their rightful place. I phone a work colleague to explain the farcical situation. We go back to work.
By the time I arrive I am almost two hours late. I switch on my phone to find several text messages from my work colleagues, all of which are in various ways mocking me for my lunacy. Replies are as superfluous as trying to discuss how something like this happens, so instead I take it all on the chin and don't mention it to any of them. They'd enjoy it rather too much for my liking and I'm still a bit steamed up about the fact that I have bumped my car to add to my woes.
All of which proves beyond any reasonable doubt that, contrary to the persisent claims of one of my colleagues in particular, Friday is shite. There is no more chance of a Friday at work being enjoyable than there is of any other day at work being enjoyable. It is arrant nonsense to believe it any better just because you get two days off at the end of it. You still have to live it. Friday is fucking crap.
Nothing unusual about that.
Wednesday, 13 March 2013
Fight Night
I'm not really into violence. Compared with other men my age I suppose I am a bit of a wuss. I don't like too much violence in films (particularly if it doesn't really add anything to the story and is just a gimmick or a chance to show off the talents of the make-up department), I don't watch any of that homo-erotic UFC nonsense, and if there is any sign of the real thing, an actual fight within my vicinity, I can make myself disappear.
Strange then that I chose to go to the David Price fight at the Echo Arena recently. Despite everything I have just said about violence boxing is something that I do have more than a passing interest in. It probably goes back to being brought up on Rocky films or something but there is something different, less immediately vicious about the noble art. It's called the noble art, for starters. Noble or otherwise, I can often be found tuning in to some scrap or other on a Saturday night when I am not belting out bad boy band tunes at the ever declining Springfield.
The more fights I have seen the more I have wondered what it would be like to actually be there. It's something I had never done before and I knew my cousin Alex would be up for it. He considers himself a proper boxing fan and he probably watches UFC. So I said I would sort us some tickets out for the Price fight. Besides, we hardly spend any time together these days as he is a very elusive individual with about thirty different addresses and probably a dozen passports. It is at this point that I should warn you that, if you are thinking of taking my lead and attending a boxing match in the near future, you should make sure that your bank account is sufficiently stacked. These things do not come cheap. It cost over £150 for the two of us which, as anyone who knows Alex will not be aware, can lead to a nervous few days wondering about whether he will a) turn up and b) pay for his ticket.
Happily he comes good on both counts. He really does love his boxing, you know. Unfortunately there is a problem on the morning of the fight. Someone has chosen this particular Saturday, the only Saturday in living memory that I have to get to Liverpool city centre, to die at Broadgreen railway station. Now, being the proud owner of some mental health issues myself I have every sympathy with anyone who might have felt the need to take their own life. But do they have to do it today, this way? Isn't that just a little bit beyond the pale? Because now all the trains are off and Alex and I are having a stupid argument about how best to get to Liverpool. I'm happy to slum it on the bus but he's adamant that he should drive us to Wavertree where he works and get a taxi from there. The plan being that I will drive him to Wavertree to pick his car up in the morning. I'm not enamoured by this idea. I intend to be in no fit state to drive by the following morning. I point this out but we still don't have an agreement until it transpires that normal service is being resumed on the railways at 1.30. They must have mopped up the dead person.
Everton are playing today. Alex is an Evertonian. All of which means that he is very keen when we get there to find somehwere to watch the game. We settle upon a dingy little place across the road from Lime Street and St.John's market. We're hungry and we can get a burger here, and it is across the road also from a bookmakers so we can have a bet on the Saturday football coupon. We don't get to see Everton, however. Though the pub has the highly illegal foreign channel which shows Saturday afternoon games live it is not Everton against Norwich City but Manchester United's visit to QPR which is on all the screens. If there is one thing that Alex and I agree on it is that if Manchester United were playing in our front garden we would each draw the curtains. So instead we concentrate on the bet, the burgers and obviously a few beers.
From there it is on to the Beehive, one of the least accessible pubs in the city which is a fact that had somehow managed to escape my memory when I suggested it. Funny how that happens. You would think a man in my position would know every single detail about accessibility in places that I have been to, but I seem to have forgotten. Maybe I have got this place confused with another pub I have been in. That's easily done. I have worked in Liverpool for five years but can still get lost on my lunch hour if I take the risk of having a wander through the city centre. Of course, wandering through city centres is a summer pursuit so I haven't done it for a while. Liverpool is a whole lot less scenic when the women are strutting about in winter coats, hats and scarves. So anyway our bet is going down. We have agreed that if either of us win we will share the winnings, but I have taken Hartlepool who are 2-0 down at Scunthorpe, while he is relying on Brentford to beat Walsall. By the time they don't we have progressed to Yates on Queen Square, watching the results go through on Soccer Saturday without having to listen to Matt Le Tissier climax every time the ball goes near to this penalty area or that.
Soon enough it is fight time. With hindsight you may mock us for paying £70 each for what turns out to be a very brief glimpse of David Price. However, to do so would be to reckon without the fact that there are no fewer than 11 fights on this card. Our view is fairly spectacular. We're high enough without being too far away from the ring. Down below us we can see Frank Maloney strolling around full of his own self importance. There's a secluded area behind a curtain where we can see tables and chairs laid out. Someone is entertaining. A succession of fancily dressed (as opposed to fancy dress) people are turned away by security staff as they try to pass through. Not Frank. One security man tries to stop him but he brushes him aside with a 'do you know who I am' hand gesture. All night there are intermittentn glances of Frank and his self importance. He makes me want to spew, frankly. No pun intended. Frankly. See what I did unintentionally there? Anyway, Frank and boxing promoters in general are everything that is wrong with boxing itself. Governing bodies should decide who fights who, when, where and for what. Not mega-rich capitalist playboys. Yes, I'm ranting a little.
The first fight on the card is a Cruiserweight contest between local boy Louis Cuddy and a Hungarian man whose name escapes me. What I do know is that it is quite unpronouncable. Alex can tell me who it is because he has just shelled out £10 for a programme. It seemed like a good idea to him when he thought it might set him back £4 or £5, but £10? That's called being stung. I decline the opportunity to get my own copy and instead refer to his when I need to. Cuddy has a large enough following and he's fairly handy. Some of the nobility is taken out of boxing when you see it this closely. Punches which are hardly noticeable on television seem to thud into the recipient with infeasible force. And yet they stand there, unaffected for the most part. By the middle of the fourth round Cuddy is well on top of his opponent and forces a stoppage.
Next up a man named Sean Lewis, nicknamed the Ginger Mexican, earns a highly debatable points decision over four rounds against a Scotsman called Craig. Craig is a good deal better than the judges give him credit for and it is during this contest that we spot another difference between live boxing and televised boxing. Ring girls. Have you ever been watching the boxing and felt slightly cheated by the fact that between rounds you are listening to some trainer or other tell his charge how to avoid getting his face punched in when you could instead be watching some glamour model walk around the ring holding up a large card with a number on it? I have, but this is rectified here as two unspeakably glamourous women take it in turns to hold up the numbered cards. While it is true that they are not exactly overdressed, I have seen worse in pubs and clubs on a Saturday night. I really can't fathom why the television companies find it so tasteless.
From the Ginger Mexican we move on to see another fight finish at the round four mark, as David Burke is sparked clean out by Dean Mills. Now this is clearly a violent incident which, had it happened on the street would be highly unsavoury, but there is something exciting about it here, now, in this arena. It's up there with the ring girls in terms of fascination factor. It takes a good few minutes for Burke to come around but thankfully he does and manages to walk out of the ring. I would have hated for my first foray into the world of live boxing to have ended in a tragedy of some sort. Mills looks like he might do that to one or two more fighters before his career is out.
The well-knowns on the card (apart from Price and his opponent Tony Thompson) are up now. British and Commonwealth flyweight champion Kevin Satchell is up against Northern Ireland's Luke Wilton. If Cuddy's crowd were loud they haven't seen nothing yet with Wilton. To the tune of American Trilogy they bafflingly sing 'we're not Brazil, we're Northern Ireland' and monotonously chant 'East, east, east Belfast' throughout the fight. It goes the distance but Satchell is well in control throughout. Not that his fans agree. I go outside to pay a visit after the scores are read out and hear a group of his fans absolutely fume at the injustice of it all. No fucking way can those judges score that fight that way. They did.
Darren Hamilton is also a British champion, but at light-welterweight. He takes on and beats Wirral's Steve Williams which is not a very popular result. It's also a fight that is strangely devoid of ring girls. Perhaps they are taking a rest before the real business of the Price fight. When the giant scouser walks into the ring a little while later both he and his opponent have a ring girl in tow, each draped in the national flag of their fighter. Then they stand around looking lovely while the fighters are introduced. When Price walks in there is also a rousing, spine-tingling rendition of You'll Never Walk Alone. He's a big Liverpool fan and his fans seem to be too. They're into it. Alex is not and nor am I really. I'm more of a Saint than a Liverpool fan but Alex looks as though he is going to vomit at any moment.
The first round is uneventful. Thompson is 41 years old and is supposed to be just another name to be added to Price's unbeaten record. Neither men throw very much in the first three minutes, but if anyone has the upper hand it is Price who seems able to keep Thompson away with his reach and looks to be just sizing him up for a straight right. More of the same in round two until, about 40 seconds from the bell, Thompson unleashes a mighty club around the side of Price's head. He goes down and at first a recovery looks likely. He stands up, wobbles around a bit, then a bit more, before the referee decides he is in no fit state to continue. His eyes have glazed over and that is that. The main event is over, and Price's record has bitten the dust. Like David Burke before him he walks out of the ring unaided, and looks embarrassed more than physically hurt. The crowd are incandescent. Curiously, the event is not yet finished as there are three or four lesser fights on after the main event. But many of Price's fans are not sticking around to find out what happens. There's a good deal of booing going on, and dark mutterings about how much it cost per second for what we have just seen. Personally, I don't see a problem. That's sport. David Price may or may not lose again. He may or may not become a world champion. If he does, then we have seen something significant here tonight.
Adil Anwar follows, another light welterweight who is most notable for having won one of Sky's Prizefighter shebangs. That's an eight-man tournament with fights over three rounds on one night at one central venue on a knock-out basis. Boxing's equivalent of T20 cricket, if you like. Anwar is scheduled to go 10 here, but ends it in 7 with a classy display. It is the end for us too. One can only drink so much crappy arena lager after having been out all day. There is just time to see one man drunken man jump over a barrier in an attempt to get closer to the ring before being escorted from the arena. We get outside and search for a taxi. I am promptly sick in the street, something which invariably happens to me when I have spent the day drinking. My doctor could explain it to you. I'm not even that drunk. Alex is in a worse state. You know it's bad when he can't drink any more. There's always a story, some stag night or something he has been on which hinders his drinking. He's probably just getting old. Believe it or not, he's not 25.
The next morning I discover that Tony Bellew (an Evertonian who would be much more popular with Alex) is fighting at the Echo on March 30. I toy with the idea of booking but only for a few seconds until I realise that Saints are at Wigan on Good Friday, March 29 and so on March 30 I will have the kind of raging hangover that is totally incompatible with Fight Night.
There'll be others.
Strange then that I chose to go to the David Price fight at the Echo Arena recently. Despite everything I have just said about violence boxing is something that I do have more than a passing interest in. It probably goes back to being brought up on Rocky films or something but there is something different, less immediately vicious about the noble art. It's called the noble art, for starters. Noble or otherwise, I can often be found tuning in to some scrap or other on a Saturday night when I am not belting out bad boy band tunes at the ever declining Springfield.
The more fights I have seen the more I have wondered what it would be like to actually be there. It's something I had never done before and I knew my cousin Alex would be up for it. He considers himself a proper boxing fan and he probably watches UFC. So I said I would sort us some tickets out for the Price fight. Besides, we hardly spend any time together these days as he is a very elusive individual with about thirty different addresses and probably a dozen passports. It is at this point that I should warn you that, if you are thinking of taking my lead and attending a boxing match in the near future, you should make sure that your bank account is sufficiently stacked. These things do not come cheap. It cost over £150 for the two of us which, as anyone who knows Alex will not be aware, can lead to a nervous few days wondering about whether he will a) turn up and b) pay for his ticket.
Happily he comes good on both counts. He really does love his boxing, you know. Unfortunately there is a problem on the morning of the fight. Someone has chosen this particular Saturday, the only Saturday in living memory that I have to get to Liverpool city centre, to die at Broadgreen railway station. Now, being the proud owner of some mental health issues myself I have every sympathy with anyone who might have felt the need to take their own life. But do they have to do it today, this way? Isn't that just a little bit beyond the pale? Because now all the trains are off and Alex and I are having a stupid argument about how best to get to Liverpool. I'm happy to slum it on the bus but he's adamant that he should drive us to Wavertree where he works and get a taxi from there. The plan being that I will drive him to Wavertree to pick his car up in the morning. I'm not enamoured by this idea. I intend to be in no fit state to drive by the following morning. I point this out but we still don't have an agreement until it transpires that normal service is being resumed on the railways at 1.30. They must have mopped up the dead person.
Everton are playing today. Alex is an Evertonian. All of which means that he is very keen when we get there to find somehwere to watch the game. We settle upon a dingy little place across the road from Lime Street and St.John's market. We're hungry and we can get a burger here, and it is across the road also from a bookmakers so we can have a bet on the Saturday football coupon. We don't get to see Everton, however. Though the pub has the highly illegal foreign channel which shows Saturday afternoon games live it is not Everton against Norwich City but Manchester United's visit to QPR which is on all the screens. If there is one thing that Alex and I agree on it is that if Manchester United were playing in our front garden we would each draw the curtains. So instead we concentrate on the bet, the burgers and obviously a few beers.
From there it is on to the Beehive, one of the least accessible pubs in the city which is a fact that had somehow managed to escape my memory when I suggested it. Funny how that happens. You would think a man in my position would know every single detail about accessibility in places that I have been to, but I seem to have forgotten. Maybe I have got this place confused with another pub I have been in. That's easily done. I have worked in Liverpool for five years but can still get lost on my lunch hour if I take the risk of having a wander through the city centre. Of course, wandering through city centres is a summer pursuit so I haven't done it for a while. Liverpool is a whole lot less scenic when the women are strutting about in winter coats, hats and scarves. So anyway our bet is going down. We have agreed that if either of us win we will share the winnings, but I have taken Hartlepool who are 2-0 down at Scunthorpe, while he is relying on Brentford to beat Walsall. By the time they don't we have progressed to Yates on Queen Square, watching the results go through on Soccer Saturday without having to listen to Matt Le Tissier climax every time the ball goes near to this penalty area or that.
Soon enough it is fight time. With hindsight you may mock us for paying £70 each for what turns out to be a very brief glimpse of David Price. However, to do so would be to reckon without the fact that there are no fewer than 11 fights on this card. Our view is fairly spectacular. We're high enough without being too far away from the ring. Down below us we can see Frank Maloney strolling around full of his own self importance. There's a secluded area behind a curtain where we can see tables and chairs laid out. Someone is entertaining. A succession of fancily dressed (as opposed to fancy dress) people are turned away by security staff as they try to pass through. Not Frank. One security man tries to stop him but he brushes him aside with a 'do you know who I am' hand gesture. All night there are intermittentn glances of Frank and his self importance. He makes me want to spew, frankly. No pun intended. Frankly. See what I did unintentionally there? Anyway, Frank and boxing promoters in general are everything that is wrong with boxing itself. Governing bodies should decide who fights who, when, where and for what. Not mega-rich capitalist playboys. Yes, I'm ranting a little.
The first fight on the card is a Cruiserweight contest between local boy Louis Cuddy and a Hungarian man whose name escapes me. What I do know is that it is quite unpronouncable. Alex can tell me who it is because he has just shelled out £10 for a programme. It seemed like a good idea to him when he thought it might set him back £4 or £5, but £10? That's called being stung. I decline the opportunity to get my own copy and instead refer to his when I need to. Cuddy has a large enough following and he's fairly handy. Some of the nobility is taken out of boxing when you see it this closely. Punches which are hardly noticeable on television seem to thud into the recipient with infeasible force. And yet they stand there, unaffected for the most part. By the middle of the fourth round Cuddy is well on top of his opponent and forces a stoppage.
Next up a man named Sean Lewis, nicknamed the Ginger Mexican, earns a highly debatable points decision over four rounds against a Scotsman called Craig. Craig is a good deal better than the judges give him credit for and it is during this contest that we spot another difference between live boxing and televised boxing. Ring girls. Have you ever been watching the boxing and felt slightly cheated by the fact that between rounds you are listening to some trainer or other tell his charge how to avoid getting his face punched in when you could instead be watching some glamour model walk around the ring holding up a large card with a number on it? I have, but this is rectified here as two unspeakably glamourous women take it in turns to hold up the numbered cards. While it is true that they are not exactly overdressed, I have seen worse in pubs and clubs on a Saturday night. I really can't fathom why the television companies find it so tasteless.
From the Ginger Mexican we move on to see another fight finish at the round four mark, as David Burke is sparked clean out by Dean Mills. Now this is clearly a violent incident which, had it happened on the street would be highly unsavoury, but there is something exciting about it here, now, in this arena. It's up there with the ring girls in terms of fascination factor. It takes a good few minutes for Burke to come around but thankfully he does and manages to walk out of the ring. I would have hated for my first foray into the world of live boxing to have ended in a tragedy of some sort. Mills looks like he might do that to one or two more fighters before his career is out.
The well-knowns on the card (apart from Price and his opponent Tony Thompson) are up now. British and Commonwealth flyweight champion Kevin Satchell is up against Northern Ireland's Luke Wilton. If Cuddy's crowd were loud they haven't seen nothing yet with Wilton. To the tune of American Trilogy they bafflingly sing 'we're not Brazil, we're Northern Ireland' and monotonously chant 'East, east, east Belfast' throughout the fight. It goes the distance but Satchell is well in control throughout. Not that his fans agree. I go outside to pay a visit after the scores are read out and hear a group of his fans absolutely fume at the injustice of it all. No fucking way can those judges score that fight that way. They did.
Darren Hamilton is also a British champion, but at light-welterweight. He takes on and beats Wirral's Steve Williams which is not a very popular result. It's also a fight that is strangely devoid of ring girls. Perhaps they are taking a rest before the real business of the Price fight. When the giant scouser walks into the ring a little while later both he and his opponent have a ring girl in tow, each draped in the national flag of their fighter. Then they stand around looking lovely while the fighters are introduced. When Price walks in there is also a rousing, spine-tingling rendition of You'll Never Walk Alone. He's a big Liverpool fan and his fans seem to be too. They're into it. Alex is not and nor am I really. I'm more of a Saint than a Liverpool fan but Alex looks as though he is going to vomit at any moment.
The first round is uneventful. Thompson is 41 years old and is supposed to be just another name to be added to Price's unbeaten record. Neither men throw very much in the first three minutes, but if anyone has the upper hand it is Price who seems able to keep Thompson away with his reach and looks to be just sizing him up for a straight right. More of the same in round two until, about 40 seconds from the bell, Thompson unleashes a mighty club around the side of Price's head. He goes down and at first a recovery looks likely. He stands up, wobbles around a bit, then a bit more, before the referee decides he is in no fit state to continue. His eyes have glazed over and that is that. The main event is over, and Price's record has bitten the dust. Like David Burke before him he walks out of the ring unaided, and looks embarrassed more than physically hurt. The crowd are incandescent. Curiously, the event is not yet finished as there are three or four lesser fights on after the main event. But many of Price's fans are not sticking around to find out what happens. There's a good deal of booing going on, and dark mutterings about how much it cost per second for what we have just seen. Personally, I don't see a problem. That's sport. David Price may or may not lose again. He may or may not become a world champion. If he does, then we have seen something significant here tonight.
Adil Anwar follows, another light welterweight who is most notable for having won one of Sky's Prizefighter shebangs. That's an eight-man tournament with fights over three rounds on one night at one central venue on a knock-out basis. Boxing's equivalent of T20 cricket, if you like. Anwar is scheduled to go 10 here, but ends it in 7 with a classy display. It is the end for us too. One can only drink so much crappy arena lager after having been out all day. There is just time to see one man drunken man jump over a barrier in an attempt to get closer to the ring before being escorted from the arena. We get outside and search for a taxi. I am promptly sick in the street, something which invariably happens to me when I have spent the day drinking. My doctor could explain it to you. I'm not even that drunk. Alex is in a worse state. You know it's bad when he can't drink any more. There's always a story, some stag night or something he has been on which hinders his drinking. He's probably just getting old. Believe it or not, he's not 25.
The next morning I discover that Tony Bellew (an Evertonian who would be much more popular with Alex) is fighting at the Echo on March 30. I toy with the idea of booking but only for a few seconds until I realise that Saints are at Wigan on Good Friday, March 29 and so on March 30 I will have the kind of raging hangover that is totally incompatible with Fight Night.
There'll be others.
Thursday, 28 February 2013
The National Football Museum
England is the home of football. We've only won one meaningful trophy in the FA's 150-year history, and that came some 47 years ago. There are even those who cheapen this record still further by reminding us that that particular triumph was on home soil, where we got to play every game at Wembley and benefited more than a little from the questionable eyesight of a linesman (referees assistant to you younger readers) from Azerbaijan. No, he wasn't Russian. Not strictly speaking. Yet despite this inglorious bastard of a record, England is the home of football. It's birthplace.
Fitting then that it should be home to the National Football Museum. Fitting yes, but somewhat perplexing that I hadn't been through the doors of the museum until just over a week ago. Though I consider myself more of a rugby league man these days, I am and always have been a football follower too. The shift to rugby league probably owes a lot to the decline of Liverpool FC over the last 20 years and almost certainly has its roots in a certain Michael Thomas goal at Anfield in 1989. The funny thing about Thomas' goal is that aswell as providing the lowest on-field moment in my football-watching life, it is also the backdrop to the finale of Fever Pitch. Nick Hornby's seminal account of a life watching Arsenal between the late 1960's and the early 1990's is by far the best sports book I have ever read and one of the main reasons I took to writing and why you find yourself about to sit through yet more of my meanderings. I know, shocking as it is, you can stick your Ashley Cole autobiography up your arse. Fifty Shades Of Shite.
I drive to the museum with my nephew Joe, my cousin's son Jamie and my mum. A lot of my footballing memories as a boy seem to include my mum complaining about having to watch it on television. Now she's a committed fan. Liverpool of course. I am still nominally a Liverpool fan as is my dad, while Joe remains as much a fanatic as I was when I was almost 14 years old. Before Michael Thomas and Brian Moore and 'up for grabs now'. I keep wondering what his Michael Thomas moment might be. I was spoiled as a kid watching Liverpool. It seemed like we won the league and/or the European Cup every year. We. See, Hornby is right, it's in there, all the time, waiting to get out. By contrast Joe has seen one Champions League win as a six-year-old in 2005, but by and large he has spent his time watching his heroes trail in the wake of Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal and now Manchester City. He has been with me to Langtree Park a couple of times but he remains a devoted red. What is it going to take to get him to commit further to the Saints cause? Relegation? It seems a stretch to imagine that, even as you see Jonjo Shelvey fall over the ball or Stewart Downing limply turn down another blind alley. They're just not bad enough to test Joe's resolve.
It takes a while to park. I had looked on the museum's website but in a manner that is consistent with the half-arsed, lazy way that I do most things, decided not to print anything out or write anything down for reference. I'd just turn up and the parking would look after itself. It doesn't quite. We end up in a large multi-story behind the Printworks, which is not a Printworks at all but a thriving shopping and dining complex. There's a banner draped over the wall as we wind up the ramp to the parking spaces that advertises parking for the day for £3.90. All of which seems very reasonable and besides, we have been driving around Manchester for 20 minutes. Despite passing the museum when looking for a parking space, we still have to ask a lady on the street how to get there on foot. Navigational skills are in short supply here.
The museum has four floors but from the outside it doesn't seem like a particularly huge building. It's an L-shaped affair, and we pass the café on the way towards the entrance. There we are greeted by a young lady who informs us that today we will be treated to a number of performances from John Farnworth, the World Freestyle Football Champion. At this point I am not entirely sure what Freestyle Football is, but I have a pretty good idea that it is a glorified form of keepy-uppy. Speaking of which, when I was around Joe's age there was a slightly older boy who lived in our street called Spike Vaughton who could keep the ball up almost at will. Terms like Freestyle Football were just a marketing man's dream back then, but if such a thing had existed Spike Vaughton would have excelled. I now live in his grandparents' old house. There's lots of our family within a stones throw of each other. It's a bit like that in Thatto Heath. We can't all be Johnny Vegas.
The entrance to the museum is, in fine but clunkingly obvious footballing tradition, a turnstile. Unfortunately, just like in real stadia, wheelchair users are unable to pass through turnstiles so instead at the push of a button a gate opens. Very slowly. It moves slower than Bully's dartboard as the least hapless of each episode's three couples decide whether they are going to gamble or that in fact that they have 'had a great day' and will take home their £30. We spend some time at the Hall Of Fame video wall where, bizarrely, Joe shows both his age and mine. The wall flashes up a whole host of football legends past and present, their career highlights, some stats, that sort of thing. Up pops Bryan Robson, possibly the most over-rated footballer ever to stalk the Earth;
"I thought that was Kevin Keegan!" says Joe as the caption appears. Evidently, Robson is not that highly rated by the under 14's, whereas if you are as old as me it is absolute heresy to suggest he is anything short of a genius. I sit and watch some more and to be honest I could spend hours here. Everyone is chronicled from George Best to Peter Shilton, to Franz Beckenbauer to David Beckham. Further information passes through on a brightly lit ticker which I think is meant to look like a stadium scoreboard. Even the one at Langtree is grander than that, however. Soon the others are harassing me to go upstairs and though I could easily spend more time with the game's legends, I find myself in the lift heading for the first floor. The lift is not your bog-standard, straight up, straight down lift. This lift travels on an incline, and is made completely of glass so that you can see perfectly well that you are climbing at an angle as you travel between floors. I like it, but I'm not quite sure I see the need for it, or it's relevance to football. It's an imponderable I don't have time for as we move out onto the first floor. The doors open and as we vacate the lift a familiar face steps in. I look up to see the haggard, serious-looking features of PFA Chief Executive Gordon Taylor. I manage to avoid the complete and utter twattery that would be saying hello to him, but can't resist trying to explain to my unimpressed mum who he is.
Soon I am separated from my mum and the boys. I am one of those awkward bastards who feels the need to actually read the information at museums. I'm a bugger for it, really. As they excitedly hop around glancing at exhibits I am reading up thoroughly on the fate of wartime footballers. They have disappeared around a corner when a young lady approaches me and tells me that the film is about to start at the cinema, and would I like to go in? Why not? I take a break from the wartime stuff then and find myself in a small, dark auditorium with an infeasibly large screen. It's made to look even larger by how close it is to the audience. For the next 10 or 12 minutes I sit, if I'm honest, trying to figure out the point of the film. There's no narrative as such, no narrator certainly. What there is, is a series of fly-on-the-wall style clips of people playing and watching football. From Hackney Marshes to the Premier League and all levels in between, the film demonstrates the sights and sounds of football without saying very much about the game. People like football. Well, shit. I knew that.
I go back to the exhibits. There's Gordon Smith's shirt from the 1983 FA Cup Final between Brighton & Hove Albion and Manchester United. We're back to Brian Moore again. Only instead of telling us it's 'up for grabs now' just before Michael Thomas makes me a die-hard Saint, he's declaring that 'Smith must score!' just before Gordon smashes his shot straight at Gary Bailey in the United goal. It's the final minutes of a 2-2 draw at Wembley and Smith has just blown the chance to win the game at the last gasp. United win the replay 4-0 and 'Smith Must Score' becomes the title of a Brighton & Hove Albion fanzine. On such moments history changes forever. There's also Mark Lawrenson's track-suit top from the 1984 European Cup Final in Rome, which Liverpool won on penalties and for which I was still a serious fan with nothing bad to say about the club. Not even about these tracksuits which are now more famous for being the outfit of choice of Harry Enfield characters. Tash not included. Dullard, overly superior Match Of The Day punditry optional.
Eventually my mum catches up with me but she does not have Joe or Jamie with her. She has left them on the second floor, the interactive zone. They're taking penalties or some such. And queuing for the privilege. We've been here a couple of hours and it is lunch time. My mum suggests a quick break. As we have already agreed to go out for an evening meal when we finish I reluctantly agree. The honest truth is that I would rather read up on more memorabilia. There's Spitting Image puppets of Eric Cantona and Gary Lineker to browse. But she insists and goes off to find the boys. She can't. What is more she can't phone Joe because his phone is in her handbag. He had asked her to mind it because the battery went some time during the journey. She doesn't have Jamie's number. We resolve to go for lunch and then ring either Helen (Joe's mum, my sister) or Joanne (Jamie's mum, my cousin) to get Jamie's number to let them know where we are. This plan would have worked perfectly had Helen had the right number for Jamie and had Joanne been available. Instead we have to wait it out in the café until they get hungry and come and find us. Fortunately it doesn't take that long.
After lunch (the least impressive ham sandwich I have ever tasted, which is some achievement when you consider that I often have lunch in the Liverpool John Moores University canteen) I go for a pit stop. Or whatever the equivalent footballing term might be. Whatever, I mention this only because there are actually small goalnets in the mens urinals, with something green laid across in front of it to possibly resemble the patch of grass in a goalmouth. They designers probably think it's cute but I think it is fairly tasteless. It puts me in mind of some Scottish football club or other who have urinals emblazoned with the images of rival players. I saw it on tv but I can't rightly remember when or why? But as we both know, tv is never wrong.
After lunch I am waiting around for the others to finish their bathroom stops when I roll on over towards where John Farnworth is performing. My journalistic curiosity has got the better of me and I am soon watching him with interest from just a few feet away. A minute or so later I think I've seen enough and turn to leave, but as I turn around I see that the security people have placed a barrier all the way around the audience who are gathered to watch. We are trapped in for the duration. Patiently, I sit through his full 15-minute repertoire. While some of the skills are mind-boggling and consist of things that even Spike Vaughton couldn't manage, there's one smug look to the audience too many for me, one inappropriate, fuck-all-to-do-with-football dance move more than I can reasonably stand. I'm relieved when it's over and I rejoin my mum and the boys. As I turn to leave the area, now free from the barrier, I bump into Gordon Taylor again. He looks serious still, and impossibly self-important. I'm concerned that he might be stalking me.
Joe and I go back up to the first floor briefly as my determination to read everything and anything shows no sign of wavering. Yet soon we are up on the second, and interacting. It's not all about taking penalties you will be relieved to know if, like me, kicking footballs is something you have just never got the hang of. I listen on telephones to Larry Lloyd and Steve Coppell among others talk tactics and motivational speeches, play 'you are the ref' so brilliantly illustrated by Paul Trevellion, and get beat 2-1 by Joe in an impromptu game of Football Top Trumps. We're outraged that our decision to give a penalty during one 'you are the ref' clip turns out to be the wrong one (I remain adamant that the handball in the clip was deliberate) and not everything works but it is all good fun. There's something ironic about a touch screen video wall showcasing televisual milestones in football being faulty. Try as I might I cannot get the clip from 1983 to work and so I guess will never know what happened that year to change the way football was broadcast in this country.
Finally we advance to the third floor which is a temporary themed exhibition. For the moment it focuses on football fashion. If you are interested in what the wags are wearing, what Bestie had on in the 1960's, or even Liverpool's infamous cream suits of 1996 or Jose Mourinho's long coat, it's all here for you. My mum remarks that George Best might not have been a very big fellow but he would never have squeezed into the shirt which is claimed to be his property. She's probably right. Indeed, a lot of the shirts on display which are said to belong to famous players from famous games seem a little on the small side. Either they bred footballers a little smaller in those days, or there is some serious shrinkage going on as the years pass by in these display cabinets. I'm dissuaded from going up to the fourth floor because it's 'only kids stuff, all about learning, it's crap honest' and we resolve to end our visit. But not before we pay a full £12.00 at the car parking meter. What happened to £3.90? Does car parking at the National Football Museum go up in line with the rate of inflation normally reserved for football players' wages and transfer fees?
I get us lost on the way home because I know about as much about Manchester geography as I do about Polish literature. Nevertheless we somehow make it back in time to meet up with Joanne and Helen (aswell as my other nephew, Patrick, who had declined the opportunity to join us in favour of a day out ten-pin bowling with Joanne) for a bit of early evening pub food. It's all very agreeable.
As is the National Football Museum, for the most part.
Fitting then that it should be home to the National Football Museum. Fitting yes, but somewhat perplexing that I hadn't been through the doors of the museum until just over a week ago. Though I consider myself more of a rugby league man these days, I am and always have been a football follower too. The shift to rugby league probably owes a lot to the decline of Liverpool FC over the last 20 years and almost certainly has its roots in a certain Michael Thomas goal at Anfield in 1989. The funny thing about Thomas' goal is that aswell as providing the lowest on-field moment in my football-watching life, it is also the backdrop to the finale of Fever Pitch. Nick Hornby's seminal account of a life watching Arsenal between the late 1960's and the early 1990's is by far the best sports book I have ever read and one of the main reasons I took to writing and why you find yourself about to sit through yet more of my meanderings. I know, shocking as it is, you can stick your Ashley Cole autobiography up your arse. Fifty Shades Of Shite.
I drive to the museum with my nephew Joe, my cousin's son Jamie and my mum. A lot of my footballing memories as a boy seem to include my mum complaining about having to watch it on television. Now she's a committed fan. Liverpool of course. I am still nominally a Liverpool fan as is my dad, while Joe remains as much a fanatic as I was when I was almost 14 years old. Before Michael Thomas and Brian Moore and 'up for grabs now'. I keep wondering what his Michael Thomas moment might be. I was spoiled as a kid watching Liverpool. It seemed like we won the league and/or the European Cup every year. We. See, Hornby is right, it's in there, all the time, waiting to get out. By contrast Joe has seen one Champions League win as a six-year-old in 2005, but by and large he has spent his time watching his heroes trail in the wake of Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal and now Manchester City. He has been with me to Langtree Park a couple of times but he remains a devoted red. What is it going to take to get him to commit further to the Saints cause? Relegation? It seems a stretch to imagine that, even as you see Jonjo Shelvey fall over the ball or Stewart Downing limply turn down another blind alley. They're just not bad enough to test Joe's resolve.
It takes a while to park. I had looked on the museum's website but in a manner that is consistent with the half-arsed, lazy way that I do most things, decided not to print anything out or write anything down for reference. I'd just turn up and the parking would look after itself. It doesn't quite. We end up in a large multi-story behind the Printworks, which is not a Printworks at all but a thriving shopping and dining complex. There's a banner draped over the wall as we wind up the ramp to the parking spaces that advertises parking for the day for £3.90. All of which seems very reasonable and besides, we have been driving around Manchester for 20 minutes. Despite passing the museum when looking for a parking space, we still have to ask a lady on the street how to get there on foot. Navigational skills are in short supply here.
The museum has four floors but from the outside it doesn't seem like a particularly huge building. It's an L-shaped affair, and we pass the café on the way towards the entrance. There we are greeted by a young lady who informs us that today we will be treated to a number of performances from John Farnworth, the World Freestyle Football Champion. At this point I am not entirely sure what Freestyle Football is, but I have a pretty good idea that it is a glorified form of keepy-uppy. Speaking of which, when I was around Joe's age there was a slightly older boy who lived in our street called Spike Vaughton who could keep the ball up almost at will. Terms like Freestyle Football were just a marketing man's dream back then, but if such a thing had existed Spike Vaughton would have excelled. I now live in his grandparents' old house. There's lots of our family within a stones throw of each other. It's a bit like that in Thatto Heath. We can't all be Johnny Vegas.
The entrance to the museum is, in fine but clunkingly obvious footballing tradition, a turnstile. Unfortunately, just like in real stadia, wheelchair users are unable to pass through turnstiles so instead at the push of a button a gate opens. Very slowly. It moves slower than Bully's dartboard as the least hapless of each episode's three couples decide whether they are going to gamble or that in fact that they have 'had a great day' and will take home their £30. We spend some time at the Hall Of Fame video wall where, bizarrely, Joe shows both his age and mine. The wall flashes up a whole host of football legends past and present, their career highlights, some stats, that sort of thing. Up pops Bryan Robson, possibly the most over-rated footballer ever to stalk the Earth;
"I thought that was Kevin Keegan!" says Joe as the caption appears. Evidently, Robson is not that highly rated by the under 14's, whereas if you are as old as me it is absolute heresy to suggest he is anything short of a genius. I sit and watch some more and to be honest I could spend hours here. Everyone is chronicled from George Best to Peter Shilton, to Franz Beckenbauer to David Beckham. Further information passes through on a brightly lit ticker which I think is meant to look like a stadium scoreboard. Even the one at Langtree is grander than that, however. Soon the others are harassing me to go upstairs and though I could easily spend more time with the game's legends, I find myself in the lift heading for the first floor. The lift is not your bog-standard, straight up, straight down lift. This lift travels on an incline, and is made completely of glass so that you can see perfectly well that you are climbing at an angle as you travel between floors. I like it, but I'm not quite sure I see the need for it, or it's relevance to football. It's an imponderable I don't have time for as we move out onto the first floor. The doors open and as we vacate the lift a familiar face steps in. I look up to see the haggard, serious-looking features of PFA Chief Executive Gordon Taylor. I manage to avoid the complete and utter twattery that would be saying hello to him, but can't resist trying to explain to my unimpressed mum who he is.
Soon I am separated from my mum and the boys. I am one of those awkward bastards who feels the need to actually read the information at museums. I'm a bugger for it, really. As they excitedly hop around glancing at exhibits I am reading up thoroughly on the fate of wartime footballers. They have disappeared around a corner when a young lady approaches me and tells me that the film is about to start at the cinema, and would I like to go in? Why not? I take a break from the wartime stuff then and find myself in a small, dark auditorium with an infeasibly large screen. It's made to look even larger by how close it is to the audience. For the next 10 or 12 minutes I sit, if I'm honest, trying to figure out the point of the film. There's no narrative as such, no narrator certainly. What there is, is a series of fly-on-the-wall style clips of people playing and watching football. From Hackney Marshes to the Premier League and all levels in between, the film demonstrates the sights and sounds of football without saying very much about the game. People like football. Well, shit. I knew that.
I go back to the exhibits. There's Gordon Smith's shirt from the 1983 FA Cup Final between Brighton & Hove Albion and Manchester United. We're back to Brian Moore again. Only instead of telling us it's 'up for grabs now' just before Michael Thomas makes me a die-hard Saint, he's declaring that 'Smith must score!' just before Gordon smashes his shot straight at Gary Bailey in the United goal. It's the final minutes of a 2-2 draw at Wembley and Smith has just blown the chance to win the game at the last gasp. United win the replay 4-0 and 'Smith Must Score' becomes the title of a Brighton & Hove Albion fanzine. On such moments history changes forever. There's also Mark Lawrenson's track-suit top from the 1984 European Cup Final in Rome, which Liverpool won on penalties and for which I was still a serious fan with nothing bad to say about the club. Not even about these tracksuits which are now more famous for being the outfit of choice of Harry Enfield characters. Tash not included. Dullard, overly superior Match Of The Day punditry optional.
Eventually my mum catches up with me but she does not have Joe or Jamie with her. She has left them on the second floor, the interactive zone. They're taking penalties or some such. And queuing for the privilege. We've been here a couple of hours and it is lunch time. My mum suggests a quick break. As we have already agreed to go out for an evening meal when we finish I reluctantly agree. The honest truth is that I would rather read up on more memorabilia. There's Spitting Image puppets of Eric Cantona and Gary Lineker to browse. But she insists and goes off to find the boys. She can't. What is more she can't phone Joe because his phone is in her handbag. He had asked her to mind it because the battery went some time during the journey. She doesn't have Jamie's number. We resolve to go for lunch and then ring either Helen (Joe's mum, my sister) or Joanne (Jamie's mum, my cousin) to get Jamie's number to let them know where we are. This plan would have worked perfectly had Helen had the right number for Jamie and had Joanne been available. Instead we have to wait it out in the café until they get hungry and come and find us. Fortunately it doesn't take that long.
After lunch (the least impressive ham sandwich I have ever tasted, which is some achievement when you consider that I often have lunch in the Liverpool John Moores University canteen) I go for a pit stop. Or whatever the equivalent footballing term might be. Whatever, I mention this only because there are actually small goalnets in the mens urinals, with something green laid across in front of it to possibly resemble the patch of grass in a goalmouth. They designers probably think it's cute but I think it is fairly tasteless. It puts me in mind of some Scottish football club or other who have urinals emblazoned with the images of rival players. I saw it on tv but I can't rightly remember when or why? But as we both know, tv is never wrong.
After lunch I am waiting around for the others to finish their bathroom stops when I roll on over towards where John Farnworth is performing. My journalistic curiosity has got the better of me and I am soon watching him with interest from just a few feet away. A minute or so later I think I've seen enough and turn to leave, but as I turn around I see that the security people have placed a barrier all the way around the audience who are gathered to watch. We are trapped in for the duration. Patiently, I sit through his full 15-minute repertoire. While some of the skills are mind-boggling and consist of things that even Spike Vaughton couldn't manage, there's one smug look to the audience too many for me, one inappropriate, fuck-all-to-do-with-football dance move more than I can reasonably stand. I'm relieved when it's over and I rejoin my mum and the boys. As I turn to leave the area, now free from the barrier, I bump into Gordon Taylor again. He looks serious still, and impossibly self-important. I'm concerned that he might be stalking me.
Joe and I go back up to the first floor briefly as my determination to read everything and anything shows no sign of wavering. Yet soon we are up on the second, and interacting. It's not all about taking penalties you will be relieved to know if, like me, kicking footballs is something you have just never got the hang of. I listen on telephones to Larry Lloyd and Steve Coppell among others talk tactics and motivational speeches, play 'you are the ref' so brilliantly illustrated by Paul Trevellion, and get beat 2-1 by Joe in an impromptu game of Football Top Trumps. We're outraged that our decision to give a penalty during one 'you are the ref' clip turns out to be the wrong one (I remain adamant that the handball in the clip was deliberate) and not everything works but it is all good fun. There's something ironic about a touch screen video wall showcasing televisual milestones in football being faulty. Try as I might I cannot get the clip from 1983 to work and so I guess will never know what happened that year to change the way football was broadcast in this country.
Finally we advance to the third floor which is a temporary themed exhibition. For the moment it focuses on football fashion. If you are interested in what the wags are wearing, what Bestie had on in the 1960's, or even Liverpool's infamous cream suits of 1996 or Jose Mourinho's long coat, it's all here for you. My mum remarks that George Best might not have been a very big fellow but he would never have squeezed into the shirt which is claimed to be his property. She's probably right. Indeed, a lot of the shirts on display which are said to belong to famous players from famous games seem a little on the small side. Either they bred footballers a little smaller in those days, or there is some serious shrinkage going on as the years pass by in these display cabinets. I'm dissuaded from going up to the fourth floor because it's 'only kids stuff, all about learning, it's crap honest' and we resolve to end our visit. But not before we pay a full £12.00 at the car parking meter. What happened to £3.90? Does car parking at the National Football Museum go up in line with the rate of inflation normally reserved for football players' wages and transfer fees?
I get us lost on the way home because I know about as much about Manchester geography as I do about Polish literature. Nevertheless we somehow make it back in time to meet up with Joanne and Helen (aswell as my other nephew, Patrick, who had declined the opportunity to join us in favour of a day out ten-pin bowling with Joanne) for a bit of early evening pub food. It's all very agreeable.
As is the National Football Museum, for the most part.
Wednesday, 23 January 2013
Wheelchair Services
I went to wheelchair services this morning.
The chair I have is five years old. Although it is regularly maintained it has taken a bit of a hammering during that time and I need a change. The process for getting a new wheelchair should be straightforward. After all, it is a pretty vital piece of equipment. Yet you probably won't be surprised to learn that the whole shebang starts with the completion of the obligatory forms at the local health centre and leads on (around three months later) to the visit I paid today to the Health & Resource Centre. I didn't even know such a place existed until I received my letter inviting me to today's appointment, but there it is in all it's glory opposite the old site of Lowie's nightclub.
I was just about in time for my 9.30 appointment but I was destined to be late all the same. Despite what the letter described as 'ample' parking there were no disabled bays available when I got there. There is a certain irony about someone attending a Health & Resource Centre to be assessed for a new wheelchair and being unable to find a disabled parking space. I had to phone through to let them know that I had arrived and would be with them as soon as I could. Going back to the letter, it had pointed out that should I not attend my appointment they would assume that I no longer had any interest in acquiring a new wheelchair and 'close my file'. Please no, not that. Anything but that. So I wasn't taking any chances.
Following the directions I had been given for the wheelchair services department I was greeted en route by Jeff who, after establishing that I am Mr Orford, led me through to a small room. An open door at the back of the room is emblazoned with the words 'assessment centre'. And that's it. That's wheelchair services. A small room rather like you might find yourself in when visiting your local GP. No sign of any of the admin staff I had spoken to on the phone, just me and Jeff left to thrash out the finer points of the deal.
Not that there looks to be much that is all that fine about this prospective deal. My plan was to simply re-order a brand new version of the chair that I have now. I like the chair that I have now. I looks relatively modern for an NHS chair and is pretty durable. Simple enough. Well no. Jeff, who at this point it must be said is a genuinely personable fellow and seems to be sincerely on the side of the customer, informs me that Lomax, the company which manufactured my current chair, have been bought out and so the model I have is no longer in production. Furthermore, there is now only one model of chair available for free from the NHS and would I like to see one? There is one in the back room. I nod, and Jeff pops into the room behind the 'assessment centre' door and emerges with the chair.
There's no polite way of saying this. It's ugly. Seriously, it's cumbersome and square and awkward looking. It looks like something out of the 1960's. When Jeff tells me that this piece of scrap metal is worth £1,800 I feel slightly queasy. Leaving aside it's aesthetic flaws, it's a piece of metal and a couple of wheels. No more materials than are required for the average push-bike. How can it possibly be worth so much? I knew what was coming next. If I didn't want that one courtesy of the NHS for free (and I didn't) then the alternative was their voucher system whereby they give you a contribution of around £1,000 and you pay the rest yourself for something a little more modern. Since something a little more modern could cost upwards of £2,500 it's going to be expensive and may have to wait a while after all. Regardless, I asked Jeff to send me the information on the voucher system so I could see what exactly is available and what it will cost.
The problem here is that wheelchair users are a captive market. While you may occasionally hear on the radio or television about the government trying to do something about extortionate mobile phone prices or utility bills, it seems they are perfectly happy to let the cost of wheelchairs rise through the stratosphere. After all, only a small percentage of the population need them so why should they care? Credit Jeff again, because he fully understood why I could not just accept the ugly chair because it does the job of getting me from A to B. I spend around 10 hours a day in my wheelchair and if I am not comfortable in it then that is an issue. Ask anyone who knows me and they will tell you that vanity is not one of my flaws, but asking someone to sit in a wheelchair they find embarrassing for 10 hours a day is unacceptable. I'd rather wear a dress all day. Probably. Let's not forget that the wheelchair is pretty much the only thing that some people see in any case. It has to look reasonably attractive. If a wheelchair can ever be described as such.
I shook hands with Jeff on went on my way to work, pondering all of this a little further as I drove. By the time I arrived at about 11.00 all of the disabled parking spaces were taken. We've been here before once already today I thought as I made my way into the main car park. Nothing there either, nothing but the brilliant self-mockery that was to be found in spotting my shoe, the one I left behind in the snow on Friday afternoon, just lazily lying there in the car park. After much pointless deliberation, dithering and numerous attempts to contact Emma I instead parked in a nearby street, but only had enough money for a one hour ticket in the pay and display. I then had to ask my boss if I could just write off the rest of the morning so that I could sort out my parking situation and get some lunch. It was already around 11.20 at this point and I normally take my lunch at 12.00. Kindly she agreed and I eventually found Emma, who moved the car to another car park which saved us the princely sum of £2. It is a staggering £8.80 to park for four hours in the street I had chosen, and £6 for the car park we eventually used. Almost as scandalously expensive as the going rate for wheelchairs..
It may be a while before I take any more time off in the morning to visit wheelchair services.......
The chair I have is five years old. Although it is regularly maintained it has taken a bit of a hammering during that time and I need a change. The process for getting a new wheelchair should be straightforward. After all, it is a pretty vital piece of equipment. Yet you probably won't be surprised to learn that the whole shebang starts with the completion of the obligatory forms at the local health centre and leads on (around three months later) to the visit I paid today to the Health & Resource Centre. I didn't even know such a place existed until I received my letter inviting me to today's appointment, but there it is in all it's glory opposite the old site of Lowie's nightclub.
I was just about in time for my 9.30 appointment but I was destined to be late all the same. Despite what the letter described as 'ample' parking there were no disabled bays available when I got there. There is a certain irony about someone attending a Health & Resource Centre to be assessed for a new wheelchair and being unable to find a disabled parking space. I had to phone through to let them know that I had arrived and would be with them as soon as I could. Going back to the letter, it had pointed out that should I not attend my appointment they would assume that I no longer had any interest in acquiring a new wheelchair and 'close my file'. Please no, not that. Anything but that. So I wasn't taking any chances.
Following the directions I had been given for the wheelchair services department I was greeted en route by Jeff who, after establishing that I am Mr Orford, led me through to a small room. An open door at the back of the room is emblazoned with the words 'assessment centre'. And that's it. That's wheelchair services. A small room rather like you might find yourself in when visiting your local GP. No sign of any of the admin staff I had spoken to on the phone, just me and Jeff left to thrash out the finer points of the deal.
Not that there looks to be much that is all that fine about this prospective deal. My plan was to simply re-order a brand new version of the chair that I have now. I like the chair that I have now. I looks relatively modern for an NHS chair and is pretty durable. Simple enough. Well no. Jeff, who at this point it must be said is a genuinely personable fellow and seems to be sincerely on the side of the customer, informs me that Lomax, the company which manufactured my current chair, have been bought out and so the model I have is no longer in production. Furthermore, there is now only one model of chair available for free from the NHS and would I like to see one? There is one in the back room. I nod, and Jeff pops into the room behind the 'assessment centre' door and emerges with the chair.
There's no polite way of saying this. It's ugly. Seriously, it's cumbersome and square and awkward looking. It looks like something out of the 1960's. When Jeff tells me that this piece of scrap metal is worth £1,800 I feel slightly queasy. Leaving aside it's aesthetic flaws, it's a piece of metal and a couple of wheels. No more materials than are required for the average push-bike. How can it possibly be worth so much? I knew what was coming next. If I didn't want that one courtesy of the NHS for free (and I didn't) then the alternative was their voucher system whereby they give you a contribution of around £1,000 and you pay the rest yourself for something a little more modern. Since something a little more modern could cost upwards of £2,500 it's going to be expensive and may have to wait a while after all. Regardless, I asked Jeff to send me the information on the voucher system so I could see what exactly is available and what it will cost.
The problem here is that wheelchair users are a captive market. While you may occasionally hear on the radio or television about the government trying to do something about extortionate mobile phone prices or utility bills, it seems they are perfectly happy to let the cost of wheelchairs rise through the stratosphere. After all, only a small percentage of the population need them so why should they care? Credit Jeff again, because he fully understood why I could not just accept the ugly chair because it does the job of getting me from A to B. I spend around 10 hours a day in my wheelchair and if I am not comfortable in it then that is an issue. Ask anyone who knows me and they will tell you that vanity is not one of my flaws, but asking someone to sit in a wheelchair they find embarrassing for 10 hours a day is unacceptable. I'd rather wear a dress all day. Probably. Let's not forget that the wheelchair is pretty much the only thing that some people see in any case. It has to look reasonably attractive. If a wheelchair can ever be described as such.
I shook hands with Jeff on went on my way to work, pondering all of this a little further as I drove. By the time I arrived at about 11.00 all of the disabled parking spaces were taken. We've been here before once already today I thought as I made my way into the main car park. Nothing there either, nothing but the brilliant self-mockery that was to be found in spotting my shoe, the one I left behind in the snow on Friday afternoon, just lazily lying there in the car park. After much pointless deliberation, dithering and numerous attempts to contact Emma I instead parked in a nearby street, but only had enough money for a one hour ticket in the pay and display. I then had to ask my boss if I could just write off the rest of the morning so that I could sort out my parking situation and get some lunch. It was already around 11.20 at this point and I normally take my lunch at 12.00. Kindly she agreed and I eventually found Emma, who moved the car to another car park which saved us the princely sum of £2. It is a staggering £8.80 to park for four hours in the street I had chosen, and £6 for the car park we eventually used. Almost as scandalously expensive as the going rate for wheelchairs..
It may be a while before I take any more time off in the morning to visit wheelchair services.......
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